


101 Ways to Date Sam Winchester

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Series: 101 Ways [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archangels, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel Lives, Insecure Gabriel, M/M, Reality Bending, Some Humor, multiple AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2454680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: 99 Zany Sabriel AUs. In which Gabriel makes frivolous (according to his brothers) use of his all-powerful Archangel mojo to try and psych himself up to ask Sam Winchester on a date. All he needs is a little practice, after all. And, as usual with Gabriel, things spiral a bit out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Attempts

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set sometime after Season 10, whatever that might mean in the future. Everything is resolved, Dean is human, there's no world-ending catastrophe going on, the Cage has been opened, and Heaven is being fixed up by the Archangels, etc.

Gabriel mussed his hair. The lighting in the Men of Letters bunker’s library was a little dim, and maybe could have been romantic if not for the miles and miles of books on how to kill supernatural creatures that lined the walls. Well, if you didn’t know what they were about, maybe it could still be romantic. Sam liked books, right?

That wasn’t the point though, and Gabriel knew he was stalling.

“So, look,” the archangel propositioned shakily. “What I’m trying to say is I think we should go on a date. Get some coffee. See the Louvre. Snag some chocolate in Switzerland. You know. Start out casual.”

Casual. That was funny, right? Casual. And maybe it was a bit of a security blanket to bring up his powers, like that showed what a catch he was, but why not? After all he would have no qualms about zipping Sam anywhere in the world, as long as they were together. There was a heavy silence. Gabriel laughed nervously just to break it, and Sam stared at him.

“A date?” the hunter asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “The Louvre?”

“Y-yeah, well, come on, gigantor!”

Sam massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed. Gabriel’s heart sank.

“Gabriel, I… I don’t even know where to start with this,” Sam said. “First of all, do you honestly think I have enough down time to go skipping off to Europe with you? Some of us actually try to, you know, help people.”

The archangel shrunk into himself a little, only daring to meet Sam’s eyes in quick darting glances. What he saw there was not reassuring.

“W-well, but I-”

“Secondly, why would I even believe that this is an honest offer at all? When have you ever shown any kind of romantic interest in me?”

“There was the time I-”

“And another thing. Yes, you’ve helped Dean and me out a few times, but that’s it. We were never friends, let alone the potential for something more. I don’t know why you bothered saying all this in the first place, honestly.”

Gabriel’s jaw tensed, and he blinked hard a few times but not to fight back tears or anything because he was a Trickster and an archangel and he didn’t give a shit what one little hunter thought of him. Only that was the whole problem; yes he did. Swallowing hard, Gabriel snapped his fingers before Sam could say anything more painful.

The scene around him, Sam included, dissolved.

“One more time,” the archangel promised, trying to psyche himself up. “One more time, and I’ll get it right.”

Gabriel snapped again, and the act started over from the beginning.

“Gabriel?” Sam asked, furrowing his brows. “You’re… You’re dead.”

The angel plastered on a smile and shrugged.

“Can’t get rid of the Trickster so easily, Sammy!” he exclaimed. “Here. I’ll prove it’s me.”

With a snap of his fingers, a platter of chocolate-covered strawberries appeared. Gabriel took one off the plate and popped it into his mouth before offering the tray to Sam. Frowning, the hunter waved him away. With a practiced sigh, one perfected by twenty previous attempts, Gabriel set the strawberries on a nearby table.

“Alright, you’re you,” Sam relented. “What do you want? You’ve been dead, or at least pretending to be, for like five years now.”

“Just busy, archangel stuff. But that’s not important. Thing is, I realized something and I…”

Gabriel struggled for a moment. His script had run out, and he needed to find something to replace the previous disastrously received dialogue with.

“You?” Sam prompted impatiently.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Gabriel said. “About… Well, lots of things. I’m sorry about Mystery Spot, even though it was hilarious-”

Sam’s unimpressed look cut Gabriel off, and the archangel mussed his hair.

“Well, nevermind about Mystery Spot,” Gabriel stammered. “I’m sorry I didn’t help more, with you and your brother, the whole Apocalypse thing. I’m sorry I haven’t come back to help you since then. I’m… Pretty useless, huh?”

“Basically,” Sam replied.

Gabriel flinched and snapped his fingers to make Sam disappear.

“This is harder than I thought…” he muttered to himself, pressing the heel of his palm over his heart. “I can’t take much more of this.”

“Gabriel. What are you doing?”

The youngest archangel whirled around, putting on a shit-eating grin just for his eldest brother.

“Mikey! What are you doing here, bro?”

But Michael just looked at him steadily, and did not respond. Gabriel shifted from foot to foot. He glanced around a little, noticing with some mortification that though he had snapped away the illusionary Sam, they were still standing in the Winchesters’ bunker. Gabriel chanced a look at Michael’s eyes. They were steely and unwavering.

“Nothing important…” Gabriel said at last.

“You have been simulating conversations with Sam Winchester for the past hour. Why?” Michael demanded.

“You wouldn’t get it,” Gabriel huffed, petulance rearing to the forefront in an attempt to annoy his brother off the scene.

“You want to start a romantic relationship with him. What is there to not get, aside from why?”

The look on Michael’s face was one of no little disdain. Gabriel’s smile twitched and faded.

“What do you mean why?” he snapped. “Sam is- he’s- he’s pretty and smart, not to mention he completely pulled one over on you and Luci, by the way, and he gets this look in his eyes that’s just- and the way he says “so get this” when he’s found something for a case and-”

Gabriel trailed off when he realized he was rambling. Michael looked even more unimpressed, if that was even possible. Gabriel stuck out his tongue at his big brother.

“This is a waste of your time and energy, Gabriel,” said Michael. “You should be helping to restructure Heaven.”

“No!”

Even Gabriel was surprised by the sharpness in his tone. Michael took a step back. Squeezing his eyes closed, Gabriel took a shaky breath. He held up both hands, a gesture common between the brothers before their estrangement; Gabriel’s signal for ‘give me a moment’. With an uncomfortable frown on his face, Michael waited.

“No,” Gabriel repeated. “Not until I get this right. I have to- I have to get this right. Please, Michael.”

The look in his eyes was uncomplicated; simple, strong desire. For his own well-being, Michael realized, Gabriel had to finish this. Whatever this was, and no matter how frivolous it seemed to him.

“Alright. Fine,” Michael relented.

He was gone with a soft fluttering sound, and Gabriel let out a long breath.

“Thanks bro. … Once more, with feeling. Come on Gabe.”

With a click of his short fingers, the scene began again. The Men of Letters Bunker, take twenty-five. But he was so worked up he had forgotten how he was supposed to start.

“Look, Sam, I know I messed up-”

“Gabriel?! Dude, what the hell?” Sam demanded, practically falling out of his chair.

Gabriel flitted to his side, to make sure he was steadied, but Sam pulled away sharply.

“Sam, _please_.”

“Please what?” the hunter asked. “You’re _dead_ , why are you here?”

“No, I’m not dead. I was hiding out in Heaven. Look, Sam, that isn’t… It’s not important, I’m here because-”

“Because what?” Sam demanded. “Whenever you show up, it always means trouble.”

“What? Come on, kiddo, I’m not that bad, am I?” Gabriel asked with a weak smile.

Sam set his jaw harshly, and Gabriel snapped his fingers.

“Ok,” he relented to empty air. “I am that bad. But I can do this. I know I can! I’m the Trickster! If I can get those two yahoos at each other’s throats in a day, I can get one of them to fall for my charms!”

The archangel went to snap his fingers again, but after a moment’s pause lowered his hand and frowned. Mulling over an idea, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. His golden eyes zipped back and forth as he debated, and then with a contemplative frown and a shrug, Gabriel snapped his fingers again.

The dim, silent Men of Letters bunker vanished. Instead, the white noise of a huge crowd buzzed in Gabriel’s ears, and everything was bright and colorful. A perfect blue sky sailed overhead, and the smell of ice cream and turkey legs wafted through the air like a college boy’s cologne.

“Maybe we just need a change of scene, huh Sammy?” Gabriel asked rhetorically, a grin on his face.

And what better place to start his journey to suave, Sam-seducing confidence than the Happiest Place on Earth?


	2. A-Hunting We Will Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frustrated with his lack of progress, Gabriel decides to try a different tactic.  
> Disney World AU

“Hiya, boys! Did you miss me?” Gabriel asked, slinging his arms around the Winchesters, who looked utterly out of place in Disney World.

Admittedly, Dean was the only one who got an arm around his shoulder. Since Sam was so ridiculously tall, like a skyscraper, or Gabriel’s true form, Gabriel had _no choice_ but to put an arm around the younger Winchester’s waist. Honest.

“Gabriel,” Sam sighed.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dean squawked at the same moment, pulling out of the archangel’s grasp with a lack of trust that was admittedly warranted.

Gabriel smiled pleasantly.

“I heard you knuckleheads had a case down here, and how could I pass up a monster hunt in Disney World?” he asked, feeling a little rush of pride that Sam hadn’t tried to worm out of his grip yet. “I mean, come on, I live for stuff like this!”

“You know we’re here on a case, right?” Sam asked, looking a little exasperated.

Then again, that seemed to be his standard expression.

“Yeah, sure! But how hard could it be with an archangel on your shoulder, right?”

With a snap of his fingers, Gabriel was holding an ice cream cone. He finally released Sam’s waist, and saw the hunter relax a little. Well, that wasn’t exactly… Reassuring… But it seemed he had a lot better chances with things when he didn’t have to stumble over that ‘whoops sorry I faked my death’ thing. So that was good.

“So, what do you think we’re dealing with?” Dean asked his brother.

“I dunno, man. Ghost? Maybe?”

Gabriel cleared his throat to remind them he was still there and, hey, still important.

“Why don’t you fill me in?” he asked. “I did come here to help, you know.”

Dean scoffed, looking more irritated than any person whose job had brought them to Disney World ought to look. Gabriel thought about dropping a piano on him, but remembered how sore Sam still was over Mystery Spot just in time. He was still pondering what he could potentially get away with when the elder Winchester paused in a moment of realization.

“Seems to me we might actually have a suspect right in front of us,” Dean growled, fisting a hand in Gabriel’s shirt and dragging him into threatening distance.

“Oh, please,” Gabriel waved off with a sarcastic smirk, not bothering to wait for Sam to defend him because like _that_ would ever happen. “If I was behind this, you’d be neck deep in cotton candy by now, _McGruff_. I told you, I’m here to help.”

“Let’s just go, alright?” Sam said, which seemed to settle the fight.

Dean let go of Gabriel, and was therefore saved from being smited in a poetic manner. And though he himself had concocted the scenario, Gabriel traipsed along after the Winchesters to, shock and awe, the Haunted Mansion. It was a little cliché, a little silly, but Gabriel was all about that anyway.

“So do we have to burn all 999 of these suckers, or…?” Dean joked, throwing Sam a childish smirk.

“Let’s hope not,” Sam retorted, ever the straight-man to Dean’s comedy.

“Sooo…” Gabriel prompted, waving his hands in little ‘get on with it’ circles.

“Two night patrol workers and a maintenance guy went missing in the Haunted Mansion over the last few weeks,” explained Sam quietly. “Yesterday we talked to the park manager, but all she knew was that up until a month ago everything was normal. But there haven’t been any new animatrons or anything added, or any evidence that there should be a ghost haunting the place. And the other maintenance worker that night said he heard screaming and ran. They finally found the bodies, all left in just the right position that anyone actually on the ride wouldn’t be able to see them. Their hearts aren’t missing, so no on werewolves. And no fang marks either, so vampires are out. I’m guessing it’s some sort of ghost or spirit. A poltergeist maybe. The ride’s been shut down for now, but with a body count like that, this has to be our sort of job.”

Gabriel nodded, hiding his smile at the use of ‘our’ behind his ice cream cone, even if it wasn’t meant for him.

“Ok, so, what’s the plan? Sneak in there tonight, guns blazing?” the angel asked, making a spy pose with a finger gun at the ready.

“Or now,” Dean argued. “The ride’s closed, there won’t be anybody hanging around it anyway. We need to gank this thing ASAP.”

Gabriel motioned with his head, where security guards stood outside the roped-off queue gates.

“Think they’ll let you in, then?” he asked.

“Not alone,” said Sam. “And we can’t risk bringing any of them with us if we’re going up against whatever’s in there. Especially since we’re not sure what it could be.”

Dean seemed displeased by the facts, but looked like he would grudgingly go along with his brother. Gabriel let a smile slide over his face, and he hooked his arm through Sam’s before the hunter could protest.

“Well, since we won’t be getting in there until the park closes, we might as well enjoy ourselves now, right?” he asked.

The brothers looked at him. Sam opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again, and turned to Dean to express their shared discontent. Dean, apparently, had no problem explaining.

“We’re three grown single men walking around Disney World, Gabriel. It’s weird.”

Sam nodded, his expression practically screaming ‘what he said’, and pulled his arm away from Gabriel’s. The archangel felt his heart squeeze a little, but covered it with childish annoyance.

“Ughhh,” Gabriel groaned. “Only you two sad sacks could make the Magic Kingdom un-fun.”

Honestly. How like the Winchesters to spoil a perfectly good, sunny day in Disney World, just for the sake of what people might think. True, their little trio did stand out a bit, but so what? They weren’t bothering anyone. Three, though, that could be remedied.

“Fine,” Gabriel relented at last, though neither of the Winchesters appeared to know what about. “Call in Castiel and we can have a double date.”

Dean spluttered through several attempts at explanations as to how platonic and brotherly he and Cas were while Gabriel watched, unimpressed. Sam looked back and forth between the two as if he was trying to decide whose side to be on. Before he could come to a decision, Gabriel had snapped his fingers.

Castiel looked around, bewildered.

“… Dean?”

“Hey, Cas…”

Gabriel smiled. Sam sighed, as expected.

“Come on, Cassie, we’re at Disney World, the Happiest Place on Earth!” Gabriel exclaimed, wrapping an arm around his little brother. “Show some enthusiasm!”

Surprisingly, it wasn’t actually that hard to coax Castiel and the Winchesters into enjoying themselves. Really all it took to get Dean on his side was a giant turkey leg, and Castiel was curious enough about everything to do most of the dragging for Gabriel in the first place. Sam was a tougher nut to crack, but after whirling around in a bright pink teacup like idiots for a few minutes, even he let loose.

It was beautiful to see, actually.

The way his eyes lit up was dazzling, which actually came as a bit of a shock to Gabriel. After all, his benchmark for dazzling was Lucifer’s wings. As the two of them followed behind Dean and Castiel, Sam nudged Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Hm?”

“Cas is taking Dean towards It’s A Small World,” Sam whispered.

He was right. The trench-coated little nerd was making a beeline straight for the musical ride, which was admittedly only still in existence because Balthazar had never had the misfortune of riding it. Gabriel glanced up at Sam.

“So, should we follow and watch them as blackmail, or let Deano suffer alone?” he asked.

Sam’s mouth pursed into a goofy-looking thinking frown as he debated their options.

“Screw Dean,” the brunette exclaimed at last. “I’m not going in there!”

Sam darted off towards Tomorrowland with Gabriel chasing after him. They finally caught their breath when Sam hopped into the Space Mountain line, which was stretched out the doors. He had a giddy smile on his face, and was gulping air like he’d run from a wendigo.

“I haven’t… Had this much fun in ages,” he admitted.

“Me neither,” agreed Gabriel. “… Hey. What say we pop to the front of this line?”

Sam managed a disapproving look for all of ten seconds before excitement overtook him and he grinned again. Gabriel took that as his cue, and snapped his fingers. Suddenly at the front of the line, the two of them barely had time to prepare before being strapped into the roller coaster. As they hit the drops and swerves of the ride, Gabriel was surprised to find Sam whooping and hollering right along with him.

“I feel like a kid again,” said Sam as they walked into the open air again. “You know, for being such a douche angel most of the time, you’re not so bad, Gabriel.”

The archangel took the backhanded compliment in stride, and gave a low bow.

“That’s what I’m here for Sambo.”

Night fell pretty quickly after that, and their group of four met up and hid out until everyone had left the park. They ducked under the rope barrier to the Haunted Mansion, and Gabriel disabled the security cameras with a click of his fingers. After that it was pretty smooth sailing getting inside.  The Winchesters were, after all, well-versed in the art of breaking and entering.

They were also well-versed in the art of getting the crap beaten out of them, which was pretty much what happened next. The thing was definitely a spirit of some sort. It rushed through the group, tossing both hunters and angels in random directions. Gabriel’s head cracked against one of the ride walls, and his gaze went dangerous. He recovered quickly and flitted to Sam’s side.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Fine.”

Sam hauled himself to his feet, and pulled out a canister of salt. Halfway through encircling the two of them, he was slammed against the track of the ride. With an eerie click, it creaked to life and a cart rumbled towards him. There was a blast. Dean had fired rock salt at the area next to the cart, but it didn’t seem to have hit anything. Jaw tense, Gabriel snapped. The ride ground to a halt.

Then it started up again.

Sam struggled against whatever invisible hold had him pinned, but it didn’t seem like much use.

“Dean!” he shouted. “The purification ritual! It’s gotta be a poltergeist!”

Dean fired another round of rock salt into empty air, unable to locate the spirit, then tossed his duffle to Castiel.

“Cas! There’s four containers in there, put ‘em at each of the four corners of the building!” he instructed, before jumping down onto the track in front of his brother.

As if to spite him, the cart sped up. With a quick flit, Gabriel tugged both brothers off the tracks and the cart barreled right by. An angry screech rent the air, and then everything was silent. Castiel returned.

“I did as you asked, Dean,” he informed them.

Dean slapped the angel on the back with a breathless laugh.

“Thanks, man. Now we’ve gotta find whatever this thing’s attached to and burn it, just in case.”

So the group set out once again, trekking through the ride and making sure to stay off the tracks. Nothing appeared out of place, though.

“What about this?” Castiel asked, holding up a tarnished penny.

Dean and Sam looked at each other before shrugging.

“I doubt it, but… It could be,” said Sam.

They all looked over at Gabriel, who had been silent for an abnormally long amount of time. Feeling eyes on him, the archangel held up his hands.

“Hold on. Think I got something.”

He flitted away, to a place near the end of the ride. After searching around a few fake headstones, he came across a single, genuine bone. An index finger, it looked like. Ew. All the same, he picked it up, and it reeked of spiritual energy. Yup. It was definitely their target.

And then a prayer zapped through him like lightning.

Sam.

Gabriel was back with the Winchesters and Castiel in an instant. Dean was unconscious, sprawled in the tracks with blood leaking into his sandy hair. Sam’s left arm looked broken, and his right was being used to toss salt hopelessly in all directions. Castiel was struggling to pull Dean out of harm’s way without dislocating his arms.

“I’ve got it!” Gabriel announced, both to distract the poltergeist and inform his teammates.

There was a rush of telekinetic force, and the archangel found himself trapped against the wall next to Sam. The hunter grabbed the bone and managed to pour salt all over it before he too was slammed hard against the wall. With a crack Sam was out like a light.

A surge of white-hot, rage-fueled grace went through Gabriel, and he grabbed the bone, incinerating it on contact. The poltergeist, which had apparently been hovering just above Dean, burst into flame. Everything went silent, but Gabriel’s heart was still pounding like a drum in his chest.

With a snap of Gabriel’s fingers, Dean was back in perfect shape, which Castiel proceeded to verify by practically dousing the poor guy in grace. That settled, the archangel leaned down to place a hand on Sam’s forehead. The blood and sweat sticking to his palm made Gabriel take an angry breath in through his nose and let it out sharply. If the poltergeist wasn’t already dead twice over, Gabriel would have killed it again.

“Gabriel…?”

“I’ve gotcha, Sam.”

With a rush of blue-white grace, Sam’s wounds closed and his bone stitched back together. The hunter sat up with a grunt.

“… Thanks,” he muttered.

“No problem, gigantor.”

Victorious but tired, all four men stumbled out of the Haunted Mansion. Dean stretched and let out a whoop, raising his fist in the air.

“Another supernatural son of a bitch ganked, and still plenty of time to hit the bar for a beer!” he shouted.

“Dean,” said Sam, looking amused. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Ok, fine, no beer,” the elder Winchester said sourly.

He stomped off towards the park’s entrance, and Castiel and Sam hustled after him. Just as the angel caught up to Dean, Gabriel’s courage came together.

“Sam?”

The dark-haired hunter turned around. Gabriel glanced past Sam at Dean and Castiel. They seemed pretty occupied with their conversation… Yeah. He could afford to take a few minutes. Turning back to Sam, he held out a hand.

“… Let me show you something.”

Gabriel’s heart glowed even brighter than his wings when Sam actually took the offered hand. With a soft flapping noise, they stood on the balcony of Cinderella’s Castle. Sam let out a breathless laugh, placing his palms on the railing and leaning out to feel the night breeze on his face.

“Gabriel, this is—”

Sam paused mid-turn back to Gabriel, brown hair fluttering around his cold cheeks and eyes wide. The archangel smiled weakly. It had all gone so well, too. But they had finally come to the part where Sam would shut him down again. Still, it was in the archangel way to try. Well, ok, maybe not the archangel way. But while Gabriel had been called a coward his fair share of times, he saw things through when he needed to.

“Sam?” he said quietly.

“Uh… Yeah? Gabriel?”

The baffled, sort of hesitant look on Sam’s face was absolutely precious. It made Gabriel think of the very first star his big brother had hung in the sky. Suddenly he felt very old and very, very young all at the same time.

And then he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Nothing. Just thought you’d be used to the view, with how freakishly tall you are.”

Sam’s laugh was worth giving up again, and leaving the confession unsaid. With a shake of his shaggy head, the hunter turned back to look over the expanse of the park. The wistful sigh that left Sam’s lips was more than Gabriel found he could bear. The archangel mussed a hand through his own locks and shook his head. He savored one last look at Sam’s back as he leaned on the railing, chin on his hands.

Then Gabriel clicked his fingers.


	3. Something About Red Balloons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel heads back to the Batcave, but with a twist.  
> Valentine's Day AU

Gabriel strolled through the Men of Letters bunker with his hands behind his back. Coming back to the setting made something hard and cold curl in his stomach, but Gabriel pushed past it with a smile on his face. This was different. He still didn’t have to stumble through an explanation of why he wasn’t dead, for one thing.

And for another, he had the extra push of the date: February 14th, to be exact.

He found Sam sitting in the library, as usual, looking at his laptop with an open bottle of beer at his elbow.

“Miss me?”

Sam jumped, turning to face Gabriel.

“… Gabriel? What…?”

The archangel strolled over and pulled a box of chocolates from behind his back. He presented them with all the flourish of a waiter at a swanky high-end restaurant.

“Thought you might be lonely, what with Deano trolling the bars for a V-Day hookup and all,” he explained cheerfully.

Sam rolled his eyes, taking a swig from his beer and ignoring the chocolates Gabriel had offered. With a slight frown, the archangel set the box on the table. But, he wouldn’t let Sam’s grumpy attitude get to him. After all, he was there to turn that frown upside down. With a little sigh, Gabriel plopped down onto the wooden table, facing Sam.

“What do you want, Gabriel?” the hunter asked at last, turning back to the screen of his laptop and shielding his face from view with a curtain of soft brown hair.

“I told you, Sammy, I’m here to keep you company! Come on, don’t grumble, I know you love me!” said Gabriel.

“Uh huh, sure.”

Gabriel’s expression wavered, because on the one hand Sam had looked at him again, but on the other his expression was one of flat annoyance. After a few seconds of contemplation, the archangel smiled back sunnily and snapped his fingers. With a little whoosh, there were pink and red streamers gliding across the ceiling, flanked by bunches of shiny red balloons.

“Come on, Sam! Live a little!”

“This,” Sam asked skeptically, gesturing at the cheesy decorations, “is your idea of living a little?”

“Pssh, no,” Gabriel scoffed, waving his hand. “That usually involves strippers and dessert bars. But we have to take this in baby steps, since you’re so used to being drab and fun-less.”

Sam quirked an eyebrow, staring Gabriel down with what Dean had coined his ‘bitchface’. Gabriel personally had never seen any dog, female or otherwise, pull off such startlingly high levels of sass, but perhaps Dean knew best. … As if!

Hopping off the table, Gabriel snatched Sam’s hands. It was only thanks to his monstrous archangel strength that he was able to pull the stupidly tall hunter out of his chair at all, but that was beside the point.

“I’m not drab and fun-less, whatever that means,” Sam protested as he was dragged along.

But before he could say anything else, Gabriel had snapped again. The library furniture vanished, to be replaced with a dance floor. Sam pursed his lips and said nothing.

“Sorry I got rid of the books,” said Gabriel. “But I thought maybe you could do with switching things up. They’ll be back when we’re done.”

“Done what?”

Gabriel shook his head, grinning.

“Celebrating Valentine’s Day, of course!”

Sam looked down at his left hand, still held in Gabriel’s right. There was just the barest twitch to inform the archangel that the hand now in his was dangerously tense. Gabriel closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but did not let go.

“And if I say no?” Sam asked him. “What then, you’ll force me?”

The words itched in Gabriel’s chest cavity. He released Sam’s hand, brow furrowed.

“No, of course not,” he answered, mussing a hand through his hair. “I would never-…”

“Really?”

The words ‘not to you, not now’ settled on the roof of Gabriel’s mouth like peanut butter. He rolled his shoulders, shrugged. Sam waited patiently with his arms crossed over his chest. Gabriel fiddled with his fingers. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Instead, he clicked his fingers.

The bunker returned to normal. Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch, gigantor,” Gabriel assured.

“There has to be a catch,” protested Sam. “Or a lesson, or something. There always is with you.”

Gabriel’s smile turned wry. He’d trained the two stooges well, it seemed. Maybe too well. But they had needed his lessons, at the time, hadn’t they? Lacing his hands behind his head, Gabriel took a few paces to the side and studied the newly-returned bookshelves.

“Anyone ever tell you you think too much, Sammy?”

“Yeah, but not you.”

That startled a laugh out of the archangel, and he almost reached up to cover his mouth. Then his shoulder went warm as Sam’s large hand fell on it. Before Gabriel could say anything else, he’d been turned to face Sam – or Sam’s chest, at least. He looked up to meet Sam’s eyes.

“Seriously, Gabriel. What the hell?”

Golden eyes dodging to the side, Gabriel snapped himself up a heart-shaped lollipop and stuck it in his mouth to avoid speaking. Sam’s jaw tensed.

“I didn’t lie, before,” said Gabriel at last, pulling the lollipop from his mouth and twirling it. “Just thought you could use a little variety. You’re so one-minded, Sambo.”

Something underneath his skin was raring to just snap the dance floor back and make Sam enjoy himself, whether the ridiculous moose wanted to or not. That was the trickster talking, though, and what he’d probably have to reign in to get Sam’s approval. If he could get Sam’s approval.

The downward spiral of his internal monologue only made Gabriel smile all the brighter to cover it. Sam let an angry breath out through his nose. He opened his mouth to speak again. Gabriel wasn’t sure just why, but he popped the heart-shaped sucker into Sam’s mouth before the hunter had a chance to speak. He made the most adorable startled noise, blinking twice before coming back to his senses.

“Indirect kiss,” Gabriel teased.

Sam squinted harshly, but did not remove the candy from his mouth. Instead, he used his long arms to haul Gabriel over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Hey!” the archangel protested, squirming feebly in his grip. “What gives? Sam? Sammy? Gigantor?”

With no explanation, Gabriel was dumped on the map table in the bunker’s foyer. Then Sam pulled the sucker from his mouth and pointed it at Gabriel accusingly.

“You,” he said, “are the most ridiculous, senseless supernatural weirdo I have ever had the misfortune to cross paths with.”

“Oh, stop, you’ll make me blush.”

Contrary to that statement, it was Sam’s face that flushed red.

“I don’t get you. At all.”

Gabriel shrugged helplessly.

“Come on, Sam. Just let me whisk you away,” he said. “It’ll be fun! Like a game!”

“Coming from you, that’s not reassuring.”

“Just this once?”

Sam considered it.

“And you’ll stop bugging me?” the hunter questioned.

“Scout’s honor!”

Sam rolled his eyes but nodded. Gabriel’s smile lit up the room, and he snapped his fingers. The red streamers and balloons returned, but instead of a dance floor the bunker’s furniture was replaced with a couch and a home entertainment system. The angel dragged Sam over to the couch and skipped off.

“O…kay…” Sam muttered to himself, tucking some wayward strands of hair behind his ear.

Gabriel returned with a bucket of popcorn, more sweets than anyone could feasibly eat in one night, and a DVD case. Sam just watched as Gabriel set everything out where he wanted it, but said nothing about the nest-like formation of objects. After popping the DVD into the player, Gabriel leapt back onto the couch, resisting the urge to snuggle up to Sam.

“Titanic?” Sam asked with a snort when the DVD menu started up.

“Oh, shush, you know you love it.”

And despite Sam’s clear skepticism, he actually did join Gabriel in singing along to the movie’s songs in stupid voices. When Jack and Rose were standing at the bow of the ship, Gabriel tugged on Sam’s plaid sleeve and jumped to his feet on the couch.

“Come on, Sambo. Be my Jack!”

And though he rolled his eyes, Sam stood up on the couch behind Gabriel, and put his arms on the archangel’s waist. They held the pose for all of three seconds before Gabriel whispered “Oh, Sam!” in a girly voice and Sam laughed so hard that they both nearly toppled off the couch.

When Gabriel waggled his eyebrows at Sam during the sex scene, he got a handful of popcorn tossed at his face, which led to a food fight spanning a good ten minutes. They both laughed at the guy who hit the propeller when falling off the Titanic, and at the very end of Celine Dion’s song, Sam recounted with an amused look on his face how Balthazar unsank the Titanic, claiming it was because he hated the movie so much. Gabriel grinned to himself, and admitted to Sam that he wouldn’t put it past his little brother to have done something like that.

By the time the credits were finished rolling, Gabriel was munching absently on a chocolate bar, and his head had somehow made its way to lean against Sam’s bicep. He only moved when Sam cleared his throat, and even then it was just to sit up straight.

“Well…” the brunette started. “That’s that, I guess.”

Gabriel nodded.

“Yup, I guess it is.”

“That was actually kind of nice, you know?” Sam confessed, looking startled even as he said it. “I, uh… I had fun. That was actually the most interesting Valentine’s Day I've had since Famine showed up. And infinitely better than that."

Sam pulled a face at the thought of Famine before letting his features fall into something calm and content. Gabriel’s eyes glittered, and his smile went wide and pleased.

“So you did miss me!”

Sam’s expression shifted from soft, even vulnerable, to unimpressed. But that was to be expected. Gabriel’s grin wilted a little, and he looked down at his swinging his feet.

“Well. I missed you, anyway,” the archangel admitted.

Sam’s face contorted in mild confusion.

“What?” he demanded, as if Gabriel had gone completely out of character.

And maybe he had. Sure, he was smooth and charming (and hey, a porn star to boot), but… It had been a long time since Gabriel had let himself be so vulnerable around another person. That was the reason he had had a thing with Kali in the first place; she didn’t tolerate weakness, or vulnerability, or sweetness. So he could keep that all buried deep down. Be a callous trickster asshole and keep everything else tucked away where no one could see. Kali was dangerous, but oh, how she was safe.

Sam, on the other hand…

Before he could finish his thought, Gabriel leaned his forehead against Sam’s.

“You’re really beautiful, you know? And terrifying,” admitted the archangel.

Sam blinked slowly. He leaned back. Then he opened his mouth to speak.

Gabriel snapped his fingers.


	4. It Is I, Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel panicked and switched scenes without thinking, which lands him in about as much trouble as you'd expect.  
> Trickster AU

When Gabriel found himself in an empty warehouse, he began to realize that there were consequences to snapping before he thought. It was similar to the abandoned place he’d used as a stage when trapping the super Winchester bros in TV Land, but somehow the atmosphere was different. An orange glare of late-afternoon sunlight pooled on the floor, and dust motes swirled lazily through its beam. Gabriel was halfway to snapping his fingers again when he heard a voice from behind him.

“It’s you.”

The archangel spun around, tilting his head to the side as he faced the door. And there, looking too much like a very stubborn chocolate lab in human form, was Sam Winchester. Gabriel smiled.

“The trickster.”

The archangel faltered upon hearing himself referred to that way, but decided to just roll with it. Maybe his subconscious knew best.

“Hi, Sambo!”

A line appeared, trailing down from the right side of Sam’s nose as his frown transformed into a full-blown snarl. Gabriel stepped back and held up his hands, eyes wide. With long strides, Sam advanced slowly across the concrete floor. The tense gait in his legs was familiar, but Gabriel couldn’t figure out where he had seen it before. Until he chanced locking eyes with Sam, and the darkness in them shot straight to his chest.

Mystery Spot.

Sam looked like he had walked straight out of Mystery Spot. Ohhhh Dad. He was uber-boned.

“Now, Sam, we can settle this amiably…” Gabriel said, taking three measured steps back.

Sam just smirked and held up a wooden stake. Gabriel opened his mouth to talk, then closed it again unsure what might come out of his mouth if he were to actually speak. Finally, he fell back on instinct and snapped his fingers. The wooden stake disappeared, and Sam slammed back into the wall with a measured, non-injury-inducing thud.

“Let me go.”

Gabriel frowned contemplatively and tipped his head from one side to the other, as if he were debating.

“Sorry. Can’t do that. You,” he poked a finger into Sam’s chest, “want to kill me. And I don’t like dying. So. Maybe if you calm down for a sec…”

“You give me back my brother you son of a bitch!” the hunter shouted, struggling wildly against the telekinetic hold pinning him to the wall.

That wasn’t exactly calming down, now, was it? As usual, Sam had learned nothing about his dangerous codependency on his brother, but that was neither here nor there. Gabriel wasn’t looking to impress any life lessons on the Winchesters. So, no harm in granting a few favors. He snapped his fingers and Dean appeared, looking bewildered.

“There. Happy? Good? Will you calm down now?” the archangel asked impatiently.

All of the fight drained out of Sam, and he just blinked at Gabriel as if seeing him for the first time. Dean, on the other hand, wasn’t as hindered by his own confusion. He rushed at Gabriel, who flicked his wrist and sent the elder Winchester soaring into the opposite wall. Everyone winced at the bang of the collision, and Gabriel had an apology on the tip of his tongue before he remembered that Dean had just tried to attack him and that getting a smacking served him right. Then, hands on his waist, Gabriel turned in a circle to study his handiwork.

“What do you want?” Sam demanded from behind him.

Looking Sam in the eye, Gabriel tilted his head to the side.

“What do I want?” he repeated.

That made him pause, with a goofy-looking thoughtful frown on his face. What did he want? Well, he wanted a date with Sam Winchester, of course. That was the whole point of the stupid exercise in the first place. And then he realized how the dynamic had shifted, that something about still being the trickster lit a fire in his chest. Gabriel smirked. He walked up to Sam and leaned up on his toes to see the hunter eye-to-eye.

“A kiss would be nice, Sammy-boy.”

Tension flitted across Sam’s face for a single second before his expression settled on annoyed disbelief.

“What?”

“Oh, come _on_ , gigantor!” Gabriel goaded, letting out a short laugh. “You’re quite the catch, is it too hard to believe someone like me would have an interest in a pretty thing like you?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed into something of a frown. Gabriel just waggled his eyebrows in response, taunting the hunter to come up with a better adjective for himself. A smooth tension filled the air; thick enough to taste on the tongue. Gabriel wetted his lips experimentally. Caramel. Sexual tension with Sam Winchester tasted like caramel. It was only peripherally that he noticed Sam shift a little. Those hazel eyes were locked on him, on his lips. A tingle hit the archangel’s fingers and rushed up his veins to hit his heart like a static shock. The surge blasted across Gabriel’s eyes, amber irises flashing intensely though the rest of his expression stayed composed.

“Hey, you back off my brother, you diabetes-riddled creep!” Dean shouted from across the room, trying to tug his arms away from the wall.

Gabriel looked up at the ceiling and offered a long-suffering sigh to the stale air.

 

“That’s Loki to you, Deano.”

For good measure, he snapped his fingers to silence Dean. Another interruption would just be tedious. Then he turned his attention back on Sam, awaiting his response with calculating golden eyes. If possible, Sam looked even more flustered and confused. His gaze kept flitting between Gabriel and Dean, and his adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed.

“Loki…? The,” Sam’s voice rasped, cracked. “The Norse trickster god?”

“Guilty,” said Gabriel. “I guess I never have introduced myself to you boys, have I?”

Sam shook his head.

“You can make supermodels appear out of nowhere by snapping your fingers,” the brown-haired hunter pointed out with the barest hint of a tremor in his voice. “What do you want a kiss from me for?”

The squint to his hazel eyes tipped off Gabriel that Sam had purposely left off the stereotypical ‘and I thought you were straight’ that would have had him slamming his forehead against a wall. So thank Dad for that. But in turn, it necessitated a response that the poor gangly hunter would accept. That would be harder.

“I like you, Sam,” Gabriel said at last, shrugging. “You complement me. The yin to my yang. Plus it seems like a lot more fun to seduce you than to kill you.”

Gabriel rolled his shoulders back, walking more confidently, eyes more mischievous. Slipping back into Loki was like sliding into a warm bubble bath. Easy. Comforting. And deliciously freeing. He shot a wink Sam’s way, and marveled at how quickly the hunter’s cheeks tinted pink. Then he chanced a glance at Dean, who was looking both utterly scandalized and disgusted, with his eyes bugging out of his head. Everything was so much easier this way. Everything was simpler.

“And if I…” Sam appeared to battle with the words on his tongue for a moment, “Kiss you. You’ll let my brother and I go?”

A bang rattled through the warehouse. Sam and Gabriel’s eyes flashed to Dean, who had slammed the back of his head against the metal wall; as a substitute for verbal protests most likely. Gabriel wiggled his fingers at the elder Winchester in a mocking wave, and then returned his attention to Sam once more.

“Sure thing. You’re in the wind,” he agreed amiably, because that was what tricksters did.

They got their jollies and were on their way. That was how Loki lived, and it was perfectly fine. Sam was pretty, and that was that. Of course, trying to convince himself of that mindset brought Gabriel screaming to the forefront, because no that wasn’t it at all. The fight was a practiced one that didn’t show on his face except by the lightening and darkening of Gabriel’s butterscotch irises.

“Alright. Fine,” said Sam suddenly.

There had been no conclusive winner, but neither Gabriel nor Loki were about to pass up a chance to kiss Sam Winchester. Leaning up on the toes of his clean white tennis shoes, Gabriel took Sam’s face into his square hands. Studied him, just for a moment, every eyelash, every blemish and mark. The uncertainty of the emotions swirling in his eyes, as varied as the flecks of color within them.

And then Gabriel pressed their lips together.

It was burning, hotter than the scorching tips of Michael’s wings. It was icy, more bitingly cold than the razor-sharp edge of Lucifer’s frosty diamond feathers. Everything aligned. And he would never, _ever_ , admit it to anyone. Because it was a revelation too cliché, too cheesy even for Gabriel, who had starred in Casa Erotica without even a prick of shame or embarrassment, and who had acted Metatron’s middle-grade writing to the letter with nary a flinch.

Sam Winchester’s lips were not soft. They were rough, a little chapped. Hunter-esque, really; the fulfillment of an obvious stereotype. The beginnings of stubble prickled on the pads of Gabriel’s fingers as he brushed a thumb along Sam’s cheekbone.

He hadn’t even realized he’d let his telekinetic hold on them go, not until Dean’s battle cry was ringing in his ears and something pointed and wooden was crunching through his shoulder blade into his heart.

Blinking, Gabriel fell back into Dean’s chest, and then collapsed onto the ground when the hunter stepped away and offered no support.

It wouldn’t kill him.

Gabriel knew that, thought it dazedly as he stared up at the Winchesters, who were looking back down at him. For two reasons. Because this was an illusion, and because no matter what he was still an archangel underneath it all. Except that this felt different. It wasn’t just a matter of playing dead, as he had so many times before. It was almost like…

The stake had actually worked?

Oh. So he was the trickster. He was Loki for real this time.

Dean’s jaw was set, hard and strong. His green eyes were bright; steely. Sam looked… Torn. His lips were a little red, his breaths a little uneven. The sunlight streaming through a crack in a window high above them fell on his face like divinity, and highlighted a fleck of… Of regret, maybe, in the lower corner of his iris, closest to the pupil. Just the barest hint. Staring at him was like looking into the sun, Gabriel thought. Like looking into the middle of a fight between his brothers. Gabriel’s vision hazed, but whether it was tears or his fake death or something else entirely, it was hard to say.

“Til next time, Sammy-boy,” he rasped, shaming the brothers with a wide, unseeing, tricksterish grin.

Then Gabriel closed his eyes, pictured things properly this time, and snapped his fingers.


	5. We’re Going on a Moose Hunt (Starring Crowley)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel makes a new demon "friend", and plays the damsel in distress.  
> Kidnapping AU

The office was fancy, very posh, from what Gabriel could see. Three plush armchairs were seated at a desk, two smaller on one side, and the largest on the other, facing the drawers. Logs in a little brick fireplace in the corner crackled merrily, and windows at the opposite end of the large room were framed in crimson drapes and overlooked some spacious and well-kept grounds. By the light filtering through the panes, it was late evening. Gabriel’s nose twitched with the scent of sulfur and holy oil.

“Do I know you?” the demon asked skeptically, placing his hands behind his back slowly and carefully in a way that assured his impeccably tailored suit wouldn’t wrinkle.

“Well, you might have heard of me,” Gabriel said with a shrug, tilting his head to get a good look over the tongues of holy fire flame that surrounded him. “Gabriel. The archangel.”

A startled, interested look passed over Crowley’s face at the proclamation.

“An archangel? To what do I owe the pleasure? I hope you’re not thinking of smiting me, I just had this suit dry cleaned, and I’ve got a date with Moose and Squirrel in…” he pulled his right wrist up to eye level, examining the watch there. “Now.”

The wooden double doors to the office flew open with a bang.

“Huh. Right on time,” said Gabriel.

 “Those doors were _hand carved_ out of _mahogany_!” Crowley shouted, the muscles of his neck tensing. “Bloody philistines.”

It took him a few seconds, an unnecessary adjustment of his necktie, and a toss of his head for the demon to compose himself. The words ‘drama queen’ were tempting on the tip of Gabriel’s tongue, but he refrained. Then Crowley smiled at the Winchesters insincerely, looking a bit strained.

 “Hello boys.”

Dean opened his mouth to say something rude, but when his green eyes caught on Gabriel he just let his mouth hang open. A furrow wedged itself between Sam’s brows as he looked back and forth between the demon and archangel who had been waiting on them. Like Dean, he opened his mouth to talk. Unlike Dean, he immediately closed it again. Then he squeezed his eyes shut before blinking them a few times as if the image would dissipate.

“Um. Uh, Gabriel?” Sam said at last, voice pitched up in confusion.

“Hey there, Sambo,” the angel greeted with a cheeky smile. “Good to see you again.”

“You’re…” Sam faltered. “You’re dead.”

“Am I?”

Crowley’s brows twitched down for just a second, and his eyes narrowed.

“I see you three know each other,” the demon began casually.

“Oh sure!” Gabriel chimed in before either of the Winchesters could. “The boys and I go way back!”

“Funny. An archangel was never mentioned on Moose and Squirrel’s list of assets.”

Gabriel shrugged. The he glanced to the side and locked gazes with Sam, eyes burning dark amber and offset by the teasing lilt of his brow. Everything went silent beneath the white noise of fizzing flame. It was Dean who broke the awkward verbal stalemate.

“Look, Crowley, we know you have the cupid’s arrow reversal spell, so just hand it over,” he demanded, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

Though no one was paying him any particular attention, Gabriel waggled his eyebrows. Ah, cupids. True, he could waste time being morally conflicted about the idea of forcing two people to fall in love without their knowledge or consent, but the cupids themselves were too much fun. And, truthfully, without their potentially skillful handiwork, there would be no sasquatch-tall Sam Winchester to look at him soulfully with hazel eyes. And wouldn’t that be a damned shame?

“Sure thing, Squirrel,” said Crowley, with a slight shake of his head. “We are besties after all. But what about our uninvited friend here?”

The look on Dean’s face screamed ‘who cares?’ in a way that made Gabriel’s jaw tense. But it wasn’t like he cared what Deano thought of him. Sure, he liked both of the Winchesters just for their idiotic audacity, their bullheadedness, but it wasn’t Dean’s approval he was looking for anyway.

“Now, come on, guys,” the archangel said with a low smile. “I saved your asses a couple times when my bros were running rampant and raring for Judgment Day. I think you owe me one here.”

“We don’t owe you anything.”

Dean’s sneer set him off. Gabriel’s gold eyes iced over, and his genial grin became thin and sharp. With a wide gesture of his hand, careful to skirt the holy flames circling him, Gabriel spoke again.

“Of course not! It’s not like I fought my brother and _died_ for you two dicks, or that I gave you a plan to stop the Apocalypse or anything!” he laughed.

“Well, excuse me if I’m not falling over myself to make nice with the guy who killed me a hundred different times in one day, and trapped Sammy and I into fucking TV Land to try and get us to say yes to his douche brothers in the first place!”

Chins thrust out, the archangel and hunter glared at each other over the wall of flames separating them. Meanwhile, Crowley had moved to his desk and poured himself a bit of scotch to drink while he watched the proceedings.

“My, my. The latent sexual tension is getting me right in the naughty bits,” he commented over the edge of his glass.

When Dean’s green irises and Crowley’s suggestive smirks started making nausea pool in Gabriel’s abdomen, he glanced over at Sam. Sam, who still looked confused, whose gaze was cutting in a way Gabriel had not prepared himself for.

“Crowley,” Sam said quietly, not looking away from the archangel trapped in front of him.

“Yes, Moose?”

“Let him go.”

Dean turned bodily towards his brother, throwing his arms out in disbelief.

“Oh, come on, Sam!” he scoffed. “What do we care about this dick? We’re here for the spell, remember?”

Sam’s eyes cornered to the patterned carpet. Gabriel wanted to reach over and place a hand on his cheek. But the fire blocking his path stopped him before his hand had no more than twitched.

“Ooh, I sense marital troubles on the horizon,” interjected Crowley, swirling his drink. “Come on, Squirrel, I was your mistress, why shouldn’t Moose have one? Even if his taste isn’t nearly as sophisticated as yours.”

“Oh please,” mocked Gabriel. “I’m the _definition_ of class. I was strutting through stardust before your roasty-toasty soul was a twisted thought in Luci’s head. And even with holy fire in the way it’s not hard to tell who has the best ass in the room. No offense, Sambo.”

A quick burst of laughter jumped out of Sam’s lips, and Gabriel gave himself a mental pat on the back. Eyes still a little wide and innocent from the unexpected mirth, Sam turned his gaze on his elder brother.

“Dean. Come on. Please.”

To his credit, Dean held up for all of a good three seconds before caving. Then, taking purposeful strides, he made his way to Crowley’s desk and slammed his right hand on it like a parent who had been convinced by his manipulative little kiddo to get that extra candy bar.

“Fine. We’ll take the archangel too.”

Gabriel rocked from side to side a bit, grinning.

“Gonna keep me, Sammy-boy?” he teased.

“Shut up, I can still change my mind,” Sam muttered, stealing a glance at Gabriel before rolling his shoulders and focusing on Dean and Crowley.

“You won’t, though.”

And somehow, Gabriel knew that was true. Whether it was a product of growing confidence or simply an observation of the half-guilt on Sam’s face. Crowley cleared his throat.

“Which of course all depends on whether I _let_ Moose and Squirrel take you away,” the demon pointed out.

“Oh, you want me in the middle of your office?” Gabriel asked, putting a squared hand to his chest. “I don’t know, Crowley, I usually like to do dinner before this sort of—”

“Hey! Both of you!” Dean snapped. “Shut up! Do we have a deal or not?”

“Deal?” Crowley’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth pressed into a thin line. “And just what am I getting out of this? Because I haven’t heard any offers thrown my way.”

“An archangel out of your office,” Sam spat back.

“Maybe I like him where he is,” the crossroads demon retorted, knocking back the alcohol left in his glass and then motioning at Gabriel with the empty tumbler.

“You think I’m hot now, let me out of the fire.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, angel boy.”

“The cupid spell!” Dean shouted, slamming both hands down on Crowley’s desk with a crack.

The demon’s smirk went sultry and charismatic again. Then he pulled a sheet of paper from out of a drawer in his desk. Dean snatched it away, scanning the words to make sure he wasn’t being duped, which was more than Gabriel had expected of him.

“Happy?” asked Crowley.

Dean jutted his thumb over his shoulder rudely to gesture at Gabriel.

“Now the angel.”

Crowley heaved a large sigh and did nothing.

“That, you’re going to have to pay for. Sorry Squirrel. An archangel on a leash is always good news in my opinion.”

“Kinky,” Gabriel chimed in.

Dean just seethed silently. Sam stepped up next to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Look, just tell us what you want, Crowley,” the younger Winchester brother said with an irritated exhale.

“Well, now that you ask, Moose… I wouldn’t mind having a Winchester or two at my beck and call again.”

“No.”

Dean’s denial was firm, issuing ferally from somewhere at the base of his throat. Gabriel watched the proceedings with interest, head tilted slightly to the left. Sam shifted on his feet. All at once, the archangel realized that the light that had been fading in through the windows had darkened into dusky shadows. It was a steep price, and maybe it was unfair to use ransom as a test of affection. Especially since he could still access his grace even within a ring of holy fire.

But then Sam glanced back at him, met his eyes with a burning sort of determination, and Gabriel couldn’t move. It took all the dignity left in him not to gulp a breath of air when Sam finally looked away and turned back to the negotiations.

“One favor, Crowley. That’s the deal.”

The words were solid, unmoving. Sam’s shoulders were squared, head lifted so that the brunette stared quite literally down his nose at the demon before him. Piecing the hunter’s body language together bit by bit, Crowley nodded.

“Fine. One favor. Pucker up, Bullwinkle.”

Gabriel’s upper lip twitched into a snarl. Every light fixture in Crowley’s office exploded, leaving them all shadowed but for the flickering firelight of the heart and the circle of flame ringing Gabriel in. The demon looked around his office with wide eyes, before settling his gaze firmly on Gabriel.

“Oh ho, I see,” he mused.

“Gabriel?” Sam muttered, blinking at the sudden relative brightness of the holy fire.

“Oops,” the archangel said nonchalantly. “Had to sneeze.”

“That’s fine,” Crowley goaded huskily. “Firelight is much more romantic, don’t you think?”

And if he wasn’t ringed into a section of floor with a diameter of six feet, Gabriel would have flared his wings and really given the demon a show. But even at their smallest, his wings had a full span of thirty feet, and while they could mold to the curves of a wall, holy oil was much less forgiving. Instead he settled for the hellfire look he had learned from Lucifer, the one that forcibly shoved lesser creatures into their places.

“Oh, my god,” Dean groaned. “Will you two douches get over your pissing match already?”

“Dean’s right,” added Sam. “We have a deal everyone’s agreed to, let’s finish it.”

He leaned over and pressed his lips to Crowley’s. The disgusted shudder that raced up and down his endless spine wasn’t quite comfort enough. Gabriel’s lips tingled with the memory of his kiss in the warehouse, and the knowledge that no two-bit sales demon deserved a privilege like that. The second Crowley had banished the holy fire, Gabriel was at Sam’s side, appearances be damned.

“Uh… Gabriel?” the taller Winchester asked.

“Yeah, gigantor?”

Sam sighed.

“Nevermind. Come on, Dean.”

“Finally,” Dean muttered. “We’ve already spent too much time in this stewpot of crazy.”

The two brothers walked to the office’s double doors, still flung wide open and jammed against the walls on either side, together. Neither one looked back.

“See you around, Gabriel,” Sam tossed over his shoulder.

“God, I hope not,” Dean scoffed.

Gabriel swallowed back the feeling of something like an angel blade wrenching his chest. This was his scenario. He was in control.

He was in control.

A cool shock of grace surged up Gabriel’s spine, sending a shudder through his frame.

“Sam!”

At the shout the hunter turned back, dark hair swinging gently at the movement.

“What?” he asked, shoulders rising in a half-shrug of confusion.

With a flap of wings, Gabriel was right in front of him, looking up a good half a foot.

“Can’t get rid of me that easy, Sambo. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but we archangels are pretty clingy.”

“And just what’s that supposed to mean?”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow up and smirked. Then, with his monstrous angel strength, he took two fistfuls of Sam’s predictably plaid shirt and tugged him down to a more manageable height.

“This is me standing up,” he said wryly. “And claiming what’s mine. You might be Luci’s true vessel, but you’re my human.”

Gabriel pressed his lips to Sam’s, gently and with much less urgency than he had shown in the warehouse. This time, it wasn’t hot or cold; just comfortably, soothingly warm. Melted chocolate warm. Maybe even sensual. After four and a half seconds with no response, the archangel pulled away, all but shoving Sam back into a straight-backed position again.

“Dude, what the hell-?”

Sam blustered, unable to get out a single coherent word after that. His hazel irises were little more than thin rings around his dilated pupils. His giant hands were trembling.

“Trust me, Sam. Maybe I’m not quite up to par now, but I’ll win the real you over yet. Don’t think I won’t.”

With the familiar glint of confidence back in his eyes, Gabriel winked and snapped his fingers.


	6. Hanging With the Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a fit of sentimentality, Gabriel goes back to his janitorial gig.  
> Janitor AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belle Plains is the name I made up for the Tall Tales college, since I couldn’t find one anywhere, and I made up my own name for Janitor!Gabe as well.

Gabriel rolled his shoulders, getting accustomed to his old janitorial uniform again with a slight smile. It had been too long. Whistling aimlessly, the archangel pushed his cart down the college hallway. So. Stanford. To be honest, he preferred the small-town Midwest campus of Belle Plains Community College to sprawling bigwig universities like Stanford. But Stanford meant Sam.

The hallway lights were still on, for the most part, but it was midnight on the dot. And, as a dutiful member of the janitorial and security staff, Gabriel had to make sure all the good little law students were out of the building before he locked up, didn’t he? Gabriel left the hall and entered one of the library rooms.

Sam wasn’t hard to find.

The bluish technological glow of his laptop lit up the darkened area around him. Leaning on his mop’s handle, Gabriel watched Sam sleep. He looked peaceful, in a way that Gabriel had never seen him be firsthand. His head rested at the elbow juncture of his right arm, which was sprawled in front of him along with the left one. Soft, fluffy brown hair haloed his head.

“And I’m supposed to be the angel,” Gabriel joked to himself.

Shaking his head, he tapped Sam on the shoulder. The law student shifted his head slightly and made the most adorable sleepy noise.

“Five more minutes, Dean…” he mumbled.

With a snort of laughter, Gabriel tugged on Sam’s hair. He finally sat up with a start, looking around wildly. After blinking hard a few times to get used to the glare of his laptop in the dim room, he met Gabriel’s eyes with his own. They were a little red-rimmed, and the bags under his eyes sent a bit of a twinge into Gabriel’s chest, just above his heart.

“Hey, kiddo. I’m locking up, so unless you wanna sleep here for the night…”

Sam nodded, then covered his mouth as he let out a yawn.

“Yeah… Yeah, sorry,” he said, closing his laptop and shoving it into the backpack lying next to his chair. “That’s the third time this week, isn’t it?”

Gabriel smiled and waved the apology away, shrugging his shoulders.

“No problem. I’ll walk you out.”

Sam nodded, slipping on the backpack and following the clatter of Gabriel’s janitorial cart out into the lit hallway. The two of them walked in silence for a long ways. Gabriel kept glancing over at Sam, but the brunette kept his eyes on his large shoes.

“What were you working on?” the janitor asked quietly.

“Hm? I uh… Just studying.”

“You study a lot. Not a party guy?”

Sam chuckled under his breath, then shook his head.

“Just, uh…” he carded a hand through his hair. “Just nervous, I guess. I only got into the program recently.”

“Dunno why you’re so worried,” Gabriel said with a shrug of his shoulders. “You’re the talk of the town, Sambo.”

Sam blinked, looked at Gabriel, and then promptly tripped over his own feet. Thankfully, the big lug caught himself, landing on his forearms, so his head didn’t hit the floor. He lay on the floor for a few long seconds, as if he wasn’t quite sure how he had ended up so low to the ground. Gabriel thought about mentioning that the air was a bit thicker than Sam might be used to, but didn’t. Abandoning his cart instead, he crouched down.

“Um,” said Sam as they locked gazes.

Rolling his eyes but with a small grin, Gabriel locked a hand around Sam’s right bicep.

“Up you get, Winchester.”

Thanks to his archangel strength, it was nothing to haul Sam back to his feet. The law student looked a bit startled, but didn’t comment. Just nodded his head.

“How, uh… What did you mean, talk of the town?” he asked Gabriel quietly.

“All the professors that come through here talk about you. When they think no one’s listening, of course. But then again, nobody takes much notice of me, I’m just the janitor after all.”

Sam looked slightly green under the fluorescent lighting as Gabriel continued to ramble. He pressed a large palm to his forehead.

“Oh, god.”

“All good things, I promise,” vowed Gabriel, placing a hand over his heart.

“That might actually be worse,” Sam admitted.

Gabriel bumped his shoulder against Sam’s arm gently, and smiled when the brunette looked down at him. Sam’s tired eyes softened a little.

“Hey, you know, it’s always handy to have a janitor on your side,” Gabriel pointed out. “If you ever need somewhere to hide from starstruck professors. And classmates.”

“Starstruck?”

“Sure. I’ve found at least five love letters addressed to you just tonight,” Gabriel joked, nodding his head towards the trash can on his cart.

Sam buried his face in his hands, long fingers inadvertently mussing up his bangs.

“It’s too late at night for me to be able to tell if you’re joking or not,” he mumbled.

A bright laugh shot out of Gabriel’s mouth.

“Nah, I was just messing with you.”

The halfhearted glare Sam shot Gabriel, after letting his large hands fall to his sides, was enough to get the archangel to waggle his eyebrows mischievously. After that, a quiet sort of tension in Sam’s shoulders disappeared. The law student shifted his backpack a little.

“Uh, hey… I guess I haven’t asked the last few nights… What’s your name?”

“Teddy Page, janitor extraordinaire, at your service,” greeted Gabriel with a low bow. “I’ve been looking after the yahoos in the prestigious Robert Crown Law Library for… About three years now.”

“You know, I think I _have_ seen you around,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Besides when you’re kicking me out, I mean.”

Gabriel returned a brilliant smile.

“Well, I do have an actual job to do besides babysitting you, you know. So, whadda ya say?” he offered. “Might be a little passé to hang with the help but-”

“Don’t say that,” protested Sam. “You… You do honest work, you know?”

Gabriel stared up into Sam’s eyes, studying him. An awkward silence passed for a few seconds until Sam suddenly tore his gaze away and began walking down the hallway again. Startled, Gabriel grabbed his cart and rushed after him.

“Hey. Everything alright?”

“Yeah.”

But the answer was too quick to be the truth, and Gabriel frowned.

“Hey, come on Sambo. We’re pals now, right? You can tell me,” he insisted.

“It’s nothing.”

Gabriel let out an exaggerated huff of frustration, and saw Sam roll his eyes a little. The two of them kept walking to the click-clack of Gabriel’s cart’s wheels.

“I was just thinking about my brother,” Sam admitted half a minute later.

“Dean, right?”

Sam blinked, then looked at Gabriel with some suspicion.

“How did you know that?” he demanded.

Gabriel shrugged, keeping a leisurely, swaggering pace over the shiny tile floor.

“You mumbled about him when I tried to wake you up.”

Sam’s expression was still a little tight, but he appeared to accept the explanation at face value. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at the floor, and finally spoke again.

“I miss him.”

Gabriel nodded.

“I miss mine too.”

The two didn’t speak any more after that, but shared a sad smile. When they finally reached the front doors, Gabriel paused. Sam continued walking. He opened the door, took half a step out, and then turned back.

“Hey, Teddy?”

“Yeah, Sam?”

“If I… Maybe… Stayed late tomorrow night…” Sam trailed off, shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“Yes?” Gabriel prompted, waving him on.

“Could we talk again?”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” the archangel promised. “Should I be bringing you a coffee?”

Sam laughed.

“That might be nice,” he agreed.

Gabriel grinned, leaning against his mop’s handle.

“What do you take?”

“Just black is fine.”

Gabriel gasped, contorting his features into a scandalized look and pressing a hand to his chest.

“ _Blasphemy_ ,” he exclaimed. “How could you possibly drink anything without sugar?”

Sam pulled a face, then shook his head.

“That’s right, _you’re_ the janitor who’s always eating chocolate bars,” he recalled.

“If you bring me one tomorrow, I might tell you something interesting about the library,” said Gabriel. “I know all its secrets, after all.”

Sam perked up at that, hooking his thumbs through his bag straps. Gabriel’s heart gave a heavy thud in his chest. Even when off the job, living a boring, everyday life, Sam was curious. The way the light hit his wide eyes when he was interested in something was a shock to the system for sure.

As Gabriel was still thinking, Sam took a full step out the doors, though still holding one open with his hand.

“I’ll make sure to nab a Snickers from one of the vending machines,” he promised.

“Yeah, that’s the stuff, Sammy-boy!”

Sam grinned, nodded, and glanced away.

“Well. See you tomorrow, then,” Sam called over his shoulder before walking off into the night and letting the door slide closed.

“Kids these days,” Gabriel muttered to himself, placing a hand over his heart and shooting a mock-pleading look at the ceiling.

With a bit of a spring in his step, he turned and walked back down the hallway in the direction he and Sam had come from. As he pushed his cart, he whistled and danced a bit before lifting the fingers of his right hand.

With a final twist of his hips to his made-up beat, Gabriel snapped his fingers.


	7. Frosting Hearts Melt in the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel opens a bakery to flirt with a customer.  
> Bakery AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put in a reference to Rob Benedict's band, Louden Swain, (which I recommend you all go listen to) because well why not? With Rob and Richard being such good friends, I can't imagine Gabriel having anything else playing in his bakery. And I wrote this chapter while listening to a playlist of their songs, so...

Gabriel’s shoulders eased into a position of comfort the second the smell of buttercream and baking dough hit his nose. A quick, satisfied glance around revealed a cozy little bakery cafe with black and white tile floors, red walls with cupcakes painted on them, and round tables. The soft sounds of a lesser-known rock band played tinny through old speakers set high on the walls. Rows and rows of cakes, cookies, pies, and breads lined the inside of the glass cases beneath the counter.

A few customers sat in little corner booths, benches framed up against the outer walls. And then the bell on the door tinkled and in stepped Sam Winchester. Ok, well sure, Dean was with him too, eyes locked on the pie section, but that wasn’t important. Gabriel’s mouth turned up in a smile, and he kept his eyes on Sam.

“Hey there, boys. What can I get you?” he asked.

“Pie,” answered Dean, without a second’s hesitation.

Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted towards his hairline and his grin turned mischievous.

“What flavor? We have lots,” the archangel pointed out.

That distracted the elder Winchester, who excused himself to practically press his nose against the glass of the pie case. The archangel reminded himself to wipe down the front of the case, which was already fogging up with Dean’s hot breath, later. Gabriel leaned his elbows on the counter, laced his fingers together, and rested his chin casually atop his hands, eyes locked on Sam’s. Sam, in return, shifted a little, flashed him an uncomfortable smile, and inclined his head towards Dean.

“Sorry about him. He, uh… He likes pie.”

“Not a crime,” Gabriel dismissed, not even bothering to flick his eyes over to Dean. “Anything I can get _you_?”

“I’m not really a big uh… Sweets kind of guy,” deflected Sam.

“We’ve got artisan bread?”

Gabriel shrugged, and actually managed to pull a laugh out of Sam at that. The smile that flickered across his face was more genuine, and he actually met Gabriel’s eyes. Before Sam could respond, Dean was shoving past him to talk to Gabriel.

“A slice of pecan and a slice of cherry,” he said with the kind of purpose generally reserved for life-changing decisions.

“Sure thing.”

Gabriel couldn’t help the bit of fondness in his voice. For all of a stubborn dick that Dean was, he was a good kid. With good taste in pie. The archangel plated up a slice each of cherry and pecan pie, then handed them over. Dean snagged the plate and pulled out his wallet with his free hand. Gabriel shot Sam a questioning look again, but the brunette just shook his head.

Ridiculous moose.

After all, when working behind a counter, all flirting interaction relied on the actual exchange of goods and services involved. The scene would never play out right if Sam kept to himself.

“Come on,” Gabriel pressed. “Try something. I promise it’s all good. Scout’s honor.”

Dean elbowed his brother a bit.

“Yeah, come on, Sammy. Stow your crap for once and live a little. You gotta eat something besides salad in a cup.”

“Dean, I do not just eat-” Sam began, but gave up when he realized his brother wasn’t even listening. “Fine. Fine,” he paused, “what, uh… What would you recommend?”

Gabriel’s smile lit up like the sun.

“I’ve got a dark chocolate brownie you might like, if you’re not into overly sweet things,” he suggested.

Sam shrugged his shoulders and nodded. With a skip in his step, Gabriel pulled a brownie from the case, and set it on a little plate for Sam.

“How much?” Dean asked when both boys had their desserts.

“I’ll give you the bill when you’re done. Looks like you’re gonna be staying for a bit,” said Gabriel, gesturing vaguely at the laptop case slung over Sam’s shoulder.

“If that’s alright?” said Sam. “We’ve got some research to do…”

The archangel nodded his approval, and motioned to one of the only corner tables that was still open. Dean shot him a grin that was begging to be full of pie filling, Sam inclined his head a bit, and the brothers moved to sit at the suggested table. Gabriel watched them as discreetly as possible, straightening baked goods in their cases and wiping down the counter. He made sure to take a cloth to the glass of the pie case too. When he was done with that, Gabriel stood by the register again, resting on his forearms and studying the way Sam’s hair swished when he turned to talk to his brother.

Sam looked up and his eyes were scorching.

Gabriel’s subconscious saved the day with a well-timed wedding cake order. He jotted down the details to buy himself some time away from Sam’s suspicion. When he looked up, the brunette’s eyes were back on the screen of his battered silver laptop. Absently, clicking on a link with his right hand, he picked up the brownie with his left and took a bite. Chocolate crumbs caught on the corner of his mouth. Gabriel wetted his lips, which felt suddenly dry.

It was chocolate mousse, not chocolate moose.

He was able to startle himself out of wide-eyed staring with the joke, and made a note to thank Crowley for his ridiculous nicknames. Or bake him a cupcake or something. It was a good hour later when Gabriel scrounged up the courage to approach the table Sam and Dean had taken over. They were still looking at the laptop, muttering to each other about a case. Sam had managed to wipe away the crumbs.

“Hey boys!” the archangel greeted cheerfully, making the Winchesters jump.

“Oh, hey,” replied Dean with a slight frown. “You need us to leave or something?”

“No, nothing like that!” Gabriel waved the suggestion away. “Actually, I thought you guys might want something to drink.”

He held out two glasses of water, which the boys gladly accepted. When Gabriel didn’t immediately leave, Sam cleared his throat.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, Sammy.”

He flinched at that.

“Uh, Sam is… Fine,” the hunter muttered.

Gabriel returned what attempted to be a smile.

“Sure thing.”

The tension was almost more cloying than the scent of sugar hanging in the air.

“Hey, so, who’s this band?” Sam diverted suddenly, gesturing up at the speakers. “Their songs have been playing the whole time we’ve been here.”

The noise of the band, which Gabriel’s mind had turned to white noise only a few minutes in, faded back into the archangel’s consciousness, and brought a slow grin to his face. His head bopped along to the beat slightly; it was one of the peppier songs. Of course, with Dean’s over-insistence on classic rock, the boys wouldn’t be all too familiar with a more contemporary band.

“Some band called Louden Swain,” answered Gabriel with a casual shrug. “Reminds me of my dad, somehow. Soothing, you know.”

Sam nodded, tilting his head to listen a bit closer.

“I like them.”

“I can get you a CD, if you happen to come back some other time,” Gabriel offered, before making his way back behind the counter, whistling along to the song.

_It’s like teaching architecture to an—_

Gabriel froze suddenly, a cold shudder running up and down his spine. Frowning, he rubbed his arms and looked around, but nothing seemed out of place. Shaking his head, he straightened his apron and kept working efficiently, keeping a close eye on Sam. Whenever he could, he went back over to chat with them briefly, enough that Dean had started giving him suspicious, though not dangerous, looks.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel noticed when Sam began to close his laptop and pack it away. With a clumsy clang, the archangel grabbed a pie tin and dished in a few slices of various flavors. The boys were just standing when he hurried over.

“Oh, hey, how much was our bill?” Dean asked.

“Twelve-fifty,” Gabriel answered a little breathlessly, startled.

Dean pulled out a ten and two ones, then glanced at his brother.

“Sammy, you got the quarters?” he asked.

Sam bit his lip and nodded a little, digging in his pants pocket. He pulled out two quarters and dropped them in Dean’s outstretched hand. Gabriel accepted the money, placing it carefully into the pocket of his apron. The Winchester brothers then took a step for the door.

“Wait!” Gabriel called.

They looked back at him, confused. He managed a flustered quirk of the lips.

“Here,” he said, offering the mismatched pie slices. “On the house. You two yahoos look like you could use a little sweetness.”

Dean zeroed in on the pie with religious intensity. Sam blinked a few times, expression warring between startled and touched. He was the one who ended up taking the pie from Gabriel’s almost-shaking hands.

“Uh… Thank you…”

He trailed off, glancing at Gabriel through the corner of his eyes.

“Gabriel,” the archangel supplied with a shaky grin.

“Yeah, you’re the best, Gabe!” added Dean with a huge, sugary grin.

With a nod the brothers left, a little tinkle of the bell at the top of the door marking their exit. Once they were gone, all the other bakery patrons faded, and Gabriel all but pressed his nose to the glass door to watch them climb into the Impala.

As Sam handed the pie tin to Dean, a piece of paper slipped to the ground. Brow furrowed, Sam picked it up. Dean asked a question, but Sam didn’t look up from the paper to answer it. Gabriel bit his lip as he watched. Dean threw out a remark before sliding into the Impala’s driver seat. Sam went red, shouted something. Then he turned to look back at the bakery.

Their eyes connected through the glass like it wasn’t even there.

Gabriel sucked in a breath. Sam waved hesitantly, offered a smile, a real one. Gabriel waved back. Then, Sam broke the connection and opened the passenger side door of the Impala. But he made a very obvious show of tucking the slip with Gabriel’s phone number into the breast pocket of his plaid button-up.

Gabriel grinned like an idiot.

Dusting off his hands, he turned back to look fondly over the bakery one last time.

He was just about to snap his fingers when the cold shudder hit him again, and he knew for sure something was off. The music crackled to a stop in the middle of “Poptart Heart”. The bakery’s tasteful light fixtures flickered. A figure stood up from one of the tables that Gabriel had been sure was empty before. The blond man met his eyes and Gabriel froze.

“Hello, little brother.”

Gabriel choked on his own breath and let out an undignified squeak. He recovered by clearing his throat with a fist to his mouth, looking everywhere but at the man across from him.

“Luci! H-hey, bro. What’re you doing here?”

Lucifer crossed pale arms over his chest and quirked a single eyebrow.

“Were you going to ask my permission to try and court my True Vessel, Gabriel?”

Gabriel opened his mouth, pulled a face, closed his mouth again. He fidgeted, but did not snap his fingers. Instead, the youngest archangel offered a sheepish smile and a shrug.

“Surprise?”


	8. I Will Not Lie On the Chalkboard Fifty Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer's not too pleased with Gabriel, and sends him through the first of five "trial runs".  
> Truth Serum AU

“Is that really all you have to say for yourself, Gabriel?” asked Lucifer. “I was sure you had a certain reputation as a liesmith of some renown.”

Gabriel blushed to the tips of his ears, and tried to grin shamelessly.

“How did you know I was…?”

Lucifer tilted his head, shooting his little brother an amused look. The kind he had always used whenever Gabriel tried to trick him.

“Michael came back without you,” he explained with a wave of his hand. “He’s such a mother hen, I knew something was up. And not even Michael can keep something from _me_.”

Gabriel huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn’t pouting, because pouting was something that all-powerful archangel Tricksters simply didn’t _do_. Pouting was what stupid tall hunters named Sam Winchester did, and it was damn adorable.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Lucifer pressed, blue eyes sharp and a bit teasing. “What do you have to say for yourself, little brother?”

Gabriel thought about that for a minute.

“Nothing?”

“You wish to date my vessel, Gabriel.”

Gabriel pressed his lips together into a thoughtful frown and nodded.

“Yeah… But so what, Luci?” he demanded with a shrug. “You and Michael called the Apocalypse off, right? You don’t need Sambo as your vessel anymore.”

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, and he took a threatening step forward.

“Regardless, he is still mine. He was made for me. I will be the judge of whether or not you will court him.”

“Seriously, bro? Come _on_!”

“Michael informed me you are not even confident yourself he would accept you,” Lucifer pointed out. “You have been practicing speaking to him.”

Gabriel’s eyes cornered to the floor tiles, expression twitching through a myriad of emotions.

“Yeah, so?” he muttered petulantly. “I’m sentimental. I wanna get it right is all.”

The bakery fell silent. After a full minute, Gabriel chanced a look up to see if his brother had left. But Lucifer was just appraising him with a shark-like smile that reminded Gabriel with a lurch of his stomach of the Leviathan.

“Well, brother,” Lucifer said, uncrossing his arms slowly and holding up a hand to study its nails. “Since you are so very desperate to practice, allow me to put you through your paces.”

Gabriel’s face paled rapidly. Vertigo-inducing memories of being shoved through time and space and being told to find his way back flashed across the youngest archangel’s vision.

“W-what—Luce, no-” he stammered.

With a guilty-child smile and a twist of Lucifer’s wrist, Gabriel vanished.

He landed in the Men of Letters Bunker. Of course. To make matters worse, Lucifer had tripped him on the way over, so he landed sprawled across the tile with an embarrassingly loud thud bouncing off the walls and ceiling.

“Nice acoustics,” he joked to himself, trying to mitigate the awkwardness.

“Uh… Gabriel?”

A pair of large shoes came into Gabriel’s field of vision, and he took a long, bewildered moment to trace their contours with his eyes. Then he craned his head upwards. A pair of denim-clad legs came into view, then the hem of a plaid shirt, which stretched over a too-tall torso. Finally, neck at a painful angle, Gabriel found himself staring up at Sam Winchester.

“Hey Sambo.”

“What are you doing here…?” Sam asked, shooting him an odd look.

Gabriel picked himself up slowly, debating the best cover story to go with. ‘Just wanted to see you’ was a bit flirty, but it would work. And if it didn’t, he could just snap out. He wasn’t a fledgling anymore. He knew his way between alternate worlds and illusional spaces like nobody’s business. They were his specialty.

“Lucifer zapped me here because he’s testing me,” Gabriel said.

And then he paused. Frowned, furrowed his brow, turned his gaze down and left. That had not been what he meant to—

“Testing you?” Sam shook his head. “Why?”

And of course there was no way he could tell Sam something so ridiculously embarrassing, even if he was an illusion, which Gabriel had no proof of anyway.

“To see if he’ll give me permission to ask you out,” the archangel answered firmly.

Gabriel sucked in a breath so fast that he choked and started coughing. Sam opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“ _What_?”

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. So before he could blurt out anything else embarrassing, Gabriel held up the hand he wasn’t hacking into and snapped his fingers.

After a beat, he snapped again.

And again, and again. But nothing happened. In fact, although he knew that in reality it was still with him and there was no way Lucifer would strip him of his grace just for a mean-spirited prank, Gabriel couldn’t feel his powers at all.

_Oh no_.

“Luce! Luci! Lucifer you dick, this isn’t funny!” Gabriel shouted at the ceiling of the bunker, voice cracking. “You can’t just put the kibosh on a guy’s powers like that!”

“Gabriel, are you… Alright?” Sam asked, placing a large hand on the archangel’s shoulder and looking as if he were three seconds from calling a supernatural mental hospital.

“No,” Gabriel answered promptly.

Thankfully, he was somehow able to swallow down the well of confessions itching their way up his throat by reminding them that Sam had really only asked him a yes or no question and elaboration was thoroughly unnecessary.

“So what’s this about… Permission to ask me out…?” the brunette said slowly, looking like he felt he probably shouldn’t have asked, which was a smart impression on his part.

With a labored sigh, Gabriel hopped up onto the map table. If he was going to be stuck puking up the truth left and right with no way to escape he might as well be comfortable while doing it.

“Luci dearest thinks I need his approval to date you since you’re his true vessel and all.”

Until it became too much and he stabbed himself with his archangel blade, at least.

But the second he thought that, there was a sudden lightness in his jacket pocket. Scandalized, Gabriel dug through his interior pocket, only to find it empty. Luce was probably laughing his smug ass off. The _dick_. Gabriel made sure to think that especially loudly.

And then his pants disappeared.

“Luce, what the hell?!” Gabriel squawked, burning bright red. “Give them back! I’ll tell Michael on you!”

Sam slowly brought his hands up and rubbed his face, as if he could massage the image of Gabriel’s red boxers out of his brain if only he tried and believed in himself. And while Gabriel had very little faith that would work and did in fact want Sam to someday see him in boxers and not have a reaction so strongly negative, he at least agreed with the hunter that it was neither the time nor the place for the appearance of undergarments (which was not something he said lightly, as Gabriel felt most times and places were appropriate for the appearance of undergarments) and wished Sam luck in bleaching the image from his mind.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, it didn’t seem to work.

“Um,” Sam started, keeping his eyes closed and his left hand on his temple. “Would you like me to get you some pants?”

Crossing his legs and bending at the waist to lean over them a little, Gabriel nodded.

“Yeah. Thanks gigantor.”

Sam bustled off down the hallway, shaking his head. Gabriel’s word vomit had him spitting out a comment or two about how nice Sam’s ass was as he walked away, but he was at least able to keep them under his breath. Once Sam was completely gone, Lucifer made his appearance, dangling Gabriel’s pants by a belt loop from his index finger. Scrambling off the table, the youngest archangel leapt at him in an attempt to get the garment back.

“Ah ah ah, little brother,” Lucifer teased, and the pants vanished again. “So, have you figured out what I did yet?”

The bastard. He looked so pleased with himself. Maybe Dean was right about him being a heavyweight douchenozzle. Not that a dick like him was allowed to speak ill of Gabriel’s brothers, no matter how correct he might be.

“I can’t lie, ha ha very funny,” the archangel snapped, mussing his fluffy hair and narrowing his eyes, which had darkened from amber to ochre.

“Aw, come on little brother,” Lucifer razzed, grabbing Gabriel’s shoulder and shaking it a bit. “You of all people should appreciate this.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just desserts and all that,” he muttered. “I get it.”

“Exactly!”

The two of them turned towards the hallway at the slapping sound of Sam’s steps. Lucifer smiled and vanished. Gabriel flipped the bird at the air where his brother had been. Then Sam turned the corner and offered Gabriel a pair of pants that they both knew would be stupidly big on him with a bit of a twist to his smile that said he was trying not to laugh. With a huff, Gabriel tugged on the jeans. They hung loosely around his hips and the pant legs pooled on the floor over his shoes.

“Sorry,” Sam apologized with a chuckle. “They’re Dean’s. The smallest I could find.”

“You muttonheads are stupid tall,” said Gabriel, then blinked hard and shook his head. “Uh, thanks though.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Gabriel moved to go sit back on the map table, but tripped over the bottoms of the jeans and went sprawling onto the bunker floor again.

“Ow…”

Sam snickered, and Gabriel tossed the hunter a rueful glare over his shoulder as he clambered onto his hands and knees. Rolling his eyes, Sam offered a hand. Gabriel took it and squeezed his eyes shut as he concentrated on not blurting out how nice and warm Sam’s hands were.

Gabriel expected the brunette to release him once he was standing, but that wasn’t the case. Sam shifted his grip to Gabriel’s wrist and stared at him as if contemplating something.

“So… Lucifer’s making you tell the truth?” he asked cautiously.

“Basically,” said Gabriel, trying to tug Dean’s jeans higher on his hips with his one free hand. “The dick Jim Carrey’d me.”

Sam tilted his head in a way that was unsettlingly angelic.

“And you want to date me? Why?”

Gabriel opened his mouth, choked, and continued without his own consent.

“Why _not_? I mean come on, Sambo, you’re taller and hotter than Mount Vesuvius and your hair is soft and you kicked my brother to the curb and you make this cute face when you’re grumpy that I bet even Mike can’t hate and even though you probably hate me for Mystery Spot and Changing Channels and hiding in Heaven like a dick for like the last four years I’m completely head over heels for you-”

With a large gulp of air, the archangel clapped his hands over his mouth, pulling his wrist out of Sam’s grip without even trying. Sam just let his hand hang in the air. Then he frowned, licked his lips contemplatively, and bit the bottom one. Gabriel’s stomach flopped, and he felt himself mumbling something obscene beneath his fingers; he tightened his muzzle-like grip on his jaw in response.

“Uh… Wow,” Sam managed at last.

Gabriel looked up at him with wide eyes. Scratching the back of his head and looking down at the floor, the hunter let out a long breath. Everything went silent and still. Sam looked up again and glanced around like he expected someone to jump out and tell him he’d been punk’d. No one did.

“So… That happened,” said Sam.

Gabriel nodded with a slight tilt to his head, and finally let his hands fall away from his mouth, because to be honest aside from something sexual there was probably no way he could embarrass himself more. Why even bother trying to stop?

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to forget this whole thing ever happened.”

“I would if I could,” Sam answered. “Trust me.”

“Ow,” Gabriel choked out before he could stop himself.

Sam looked properly chastened, and offered Gabriel a weak smile.

“Sorry.”

“Well, I knew it was a long shot anyway,” admitted the archangel with a broken little laugh. “It’s just I-”

And then Lucifer was standing there with the edges of his mouth a bit pinched and his eyes sullen. They had known each other long enough, been close enough, that Gabriel knew immediately that Lucifer’s expression was as close to an apology as he would get. Clearly his big brother had rethought the merits of the particular set of circumstances he’d tossed Gabriel into. It didn’t mean his little ‘punishment’ was over, but at least Lucifer understood that the scenario had become painful and not just suitably embarrassing. Gabriel nodded gently.

Mouth pursed in concentration, Lucifer flicked his hand and everything changed.


	9. Peanut Gallery on Your Shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Lucifer hang out on Sam's shoulders, although no one's sure which of them is the actual shoulder angel.  
> Shoulder Angel AU

Although he didn’t like it, Gabriel expected the sickish feeling that came with being flung through time and space by his brother. Thankfully, his landing was much more comfortable than the last. A fall into some sort of fabric instead of a stupidly hard tile floor. Shaking his head hard to get rid of the vertigo, Gabriel sat up.

And then the ground beneath him shifted.

“Whoa!”

Gabriel clung to the fabric and was able to manage not falling. When everything settled, he looked up, and saw… Fluffy brown hair and an ear almost as tall as him. The archangel pulled a face. He was standing on… Sam Winchester’s left shoulder? A laugh split the air.

Clinging to Sam’s collar, he leaned over to get a look at his right shoulder. And there, sitting comfortably with one leg crossed and the other dangling down towards Sam’s right pec, was Lucifer.

“You’ll fall if you do that, Gabriel,” the elder archangel warned cheerfully.

With a huff, Gabriel seated himself more steadily on Sam’s shoulder.

“You mean like you?” he scoffed. “Shoulder angels, Luci? Seriously?”

“Yup. But you, little brother, still don’t have your powers,” the devil said with a self-satisfied grin, ignoring the verbal jab that would have been too insensitive for any human.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. He clambered over the front of Sam’s button-up, raring to tackle his brother. But just as he reached the opposite shoulder, Lucifer tapped him on the forehead. A second later Gabriel sat up, stomach and head full of nausea as he looked around and found himself back on Sam’s left shoulder.

“Dick,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and digging his back into the meat of Sam’s neck a bit.

“Can you guys not do that?” the man himself muttered tightly, as if he were trying not to move his mouth too much. “I’m trying to look like a sane person here.”

It was only then that Gabriel noticed that they were moving through a crowd, of people who likely could not see him or his brother. College kids finally hitting their second wind of the day, looking more alert than Gabriel remembered any student at Belle Plains ever being before noon. They were outside, sun shining down and marking the time at something like two in the afternoon, which made sense given the state of the students. The buildings were familiar too, ones he had himself seen, though in the dark, many hours before.

Gabriel did a second once-over of Sam. Definitely much younger than the real Sam, the hunter. He was a simple (if someone so pretty and complex and emotionally beautiful could be simple at all) law student again.

“Aw, come on, bunk buddy,” Lucifer teased. “You’ll make me cry.”

“Yeah, Sambo,” Gabriel chimed in. “Don’t tough love us. We got enough of that from Dad.”

The brunette rolled his eyes and strode purposely towards a building. Pushing the door open nearly unseated Lucifer, much to Gabriel’s unbridled glee. The youngest archangel grinned and cuddled up to Sam’s neck, even though it made the human twitch at the odd sensation.

Sam was comfy. Gabriel nearly fell asleep to the soothing rock of Sam’s giant footsteps, but was jolted awake when the brunette sat down heavily in an auditorium seat.

“Ooh… Standardized tests! Now that’s what they should have in Hell…” Lucifer mused.

“A test?” Gabriel said, blinking a few times to wake himself up fully and glancing around before blowing a raspberry. “Ugh. Kill me.”

“Already did, brother,” quipped Lucifer.

Sam couldn’t hide his snort. He tried instead to cover it up as if he had sneezed but the other students still gave him funny looks. Gabriel frowned and stuck his tongue out at them, grabbing a fistful of Sam’s collar protectively.

“Guys, shut up, I’ve gotta focus,” Sam breathed out, eyes squinted in concentration.

He accepted a Scantron and exam paper from the student next to him, then passed the remaining stack on. Lucifer took great delight in yelling out random letters as Sam tried to remember how to spell his full name on the bubble sheet.

“Awww, _Samuel_ ,” Gabriel laughed. “It suits you.”

Sam ignored him, but flushed pink and furrowed his brow as he moved on to writing down his ID number. Lucifer kept up his little game and screamed random numbers as loudly as his tiny lungs could manage. It worked, as he got Sam to accidentally write an eight instead of a one. Grumbling low in his throat, the law student erased the mark and put down the correct one. However, the shadow of the eight was still visible, tangible proof of Lucifer’s petty victory.

For the most part after that, Sam was successfully able to ignore the hoopla from the little angels atop his shoulders. Gabriel was actually rather impressed, and almost believed Sam might make it through the entire exam without any more negative interference, until he stopped entirely on question thirty-three.

“Shit,” Sam breathed, squeezing his eyes shut as if the answer might be on the backside of his eyelids.

It didn’t appear to be there, based on the way the furrow wedged between his eyebrows stayed firmly in place. Lucifer leaned over, almost dangerously so, to get a look at the question. As the blond read, he mumbled the words out loud to himself. Gabriel rolled his eyes, but was glad to be able to hear the test question without risking his own beautiful mug.

“You know, bunk buddy, if you just let me into your noggin, I could find that answer right away,” Lucifer offered at last. “I know you studied it.”

Sam looked almost insulted.

“I am not gonna say yes to you for something so stupid!” he growled under his breath.

Lucifer gave a thoughtful frown and shrugged, as if to say it was worth a shot. He shifted to sit cross-legged and rested his chin on his hands and his elbows on his knees. The aura of boredom the devil exuded made Sam roll his eyes.

“I could pop on over to your neighbor’s test and see what they put,” suggested Gabriel helpfully.

He saw Sam’s jaw tense, and the brunette turned his head just the slightest to glare down at Gabriel.

“I thought you were supposed to be my shoulder _angel_.”

Gabriel shrugged.

“It’s only a technicality,” he explained idly, lying back so that he was sprawled across the length of Sam’s broad shoulder. “After all, Luci’s Satan and all, so of course he’s the shoulder devil.”

“I am not cheating,” snapped Sam.

“Good for you,” said one of the TAs helping proctor the exam. “But keep it to yourself. People need quiet for the test.”

The brunette ducked his head down in embarrassment, cheeks flaming. Lucifer laughed, pleased. Gabriel himself actually felt a bit bad about the whole thing. He patted what of Sam’s hair he could reach in a silly attempt to be soothing. Sam just sighed and returned to his test.

“The next one’s C,” called Lucifer lazily.

Sam frowned. Read the question. Bubbled in C. Then, grumpily, he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to knock Lucifer off. However, the archangel just flitted in and out of reality until he could get a firm foothold in Sam’s shirt. Gabriel, powerless, wasn’t so lucky. With an ‘oof’ worthy of a cartoon, he toppled into Sam’s breast pocket.

“Sam? Sammy-boy? Gigantor?” the miniscule archangel called, scrabbling uselessly against the smooth fabric of Sam’s dress shirt. “A little help?”

Sam filled in two more bubbles, then glanced around out of the corner of his eyes. Once he was satisfied everyone else’s attention was occupied, Sam reached the index finger of his left hand into his pocket. Gabriel grabbed the end of the digit in a bear hug and held on for dear life as Sam pulled him out.

However, instead of being set back on Sam’s shoulder, Gabriel felt the soles of his white tennis shoes connect with the wood of the auditorium flip-up desk. Curious, he tilted his head and studied the exam Sam was working on.

“Huh. Halfway there, Sambo!” he called.

Sam just smirked a little and nudged Gabriel aside by pressing the eraser of his pencil to the tiny angel’s belly. Then he filled in the B bubble that Gabriel had been standing on. The archangel pouted, looping his arms over his chest protectively.

“You could’ve just asked,” he pointed out.

Lucifer, on the high ground of Sam’s right shoulder, grinned like he should be in trouble for something.

“This is much more fun,” Lucifer answered as Sam continued to fill in bubbles. “Sammy agrees with me; we’re two of a kind, after all. You’re just too amusing to mess with, little brother.”

Gabriel’s expression went flat, and he stuck up both middle fingers at his brother.

Thankfully for Sam, he was able to finish the rest of the exam without another shoulder-angel incited incident. And with time to spare, too, Gabriel noted with vicarious pride. Most of the other students were still working when Sam placed Gabriel back on his shoulder, handed in his test, and left.

It was in between class periods, which left campus mostly deserted, and the archangels took full advantage.

“So, how did you think you did?” Lucifer asked clinically, though clearly mocking Sam.

“Shut up, Lucifer.”

The devil pressed a hand to his chest, and turned his scandalized look on his little brother.

“Sammy said shut up to me…”

“Thank Dad,” retorted Gabriel. “Someone had to.”

That sent a little kick of humor into the set of Sam’s lips, which Gabriel counted as a victory.

“I’d watch my mouth if I were you, little brother. Only one of us has his powers right now,” Lucifer warned, his blue eyes steely but his mouth downturned into a childish pout.

Gabriel waved him away lazily.

“This is why Sammy-boy likes me better,” he said. “You’re too intense, Luci.”

“He does not like you better!”

Gabriel’s lips pulled up and out into a tricksterish grin.

“Does so.”

“Does not!”

“Does so. Don’t you, Sambo?”

“You’re both dicks,” Sam supplied, rolling his eyes. “But… Gabriel’s a little more tolerable than you, Lucifer.”

The golden-eyed archangel cheered.

“I’m _much_ better than Gabriel,” Lucifer protested. “I’m older than him, and stronger. Plus I can do _this_!”

Lucifer stuck out his tongue, cleaved down the middle almost halfway in, and the two tips wriggled oddly. Sam closed his eyes, shook his head, sighed.

“I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“No, no,” Gabriel interrupted, patting Sam’s neck. “He’s got a point.”

Sam let out a long-suffering sigh that unwillingly turned into a breathy laugh halfway through. Still chuckling softly, Sam shook his head and looked up at the blue of the sky. Gabriel followed his gaze, but only after a long, dumbfounded moment admiring the swish of Sam’s hair from so close.

“It’s a nice day,” Sam said at last, as though he couldn’t believe it.

Gabriel had to admit, Lucifer had conjured a truly beautiful fall day. Just crisp enough for a jacket, unless you were from the Midwest – in which case a light t-shirt might be more appropriate. The slant of light hit the sandstone of the campus buildings just right. Sam paused in front of a fountain.

All three watched the graceful arc of the water, spurting up to the sky and diving back down.

“You could jump in,” Gabriel suggested.

Sam rolled his eyes, but the soft smile on his face didn’t drop away.

“Or you could toss Gabriel in,” offered Lucifer. “You and I were made for each other, Sammy. We don’t need him.”

“Hey!” protested Gabriel. “Besides, then he’d only have a shoulder devil, and that would suck. Right Sambo?”

“I’m not taking sides,” Sam insisted, trailing his long fingers through the rush of fountain water.

“Psssh, you just don’t want to tell Mr. You-Were-Made-For-Me over there that you and I have _chemistry_.”

“You’re a douche, Gabriel,” said Sam.

But there was an undeniable fondness to the expletive that Sam didn’t even bother to fight.

Gabriel, emotionally sated in a way he couldn’t explain in words, just smiled. It had been so long since he’d just joked around with any of his closest brothers. And to bond over teasing Sam Winchester of all things… Well, there had been a reason Lucifer was the one to teach him everything he knew. Or, most of it. Gabriel grinned. He did, after all, always have a few of his own more pagan tricks up his sleeves.

“Love you, Sambo,” he mumbled.

Amazingly, the brunette did not tense. Gabriel knew even with his eyes closed, because he didn’t feel the shift of muscle from beneath him. Sam held his tension in his jaw, in his neck and shoulders; if he went rigid, Gabriel would have been able to feel. But he didn’t.

Then there was a laugh. Not Sam’s.

Lucifer’s.

“I think you’re getting a bit too comfortable, Gabriel,” he said.

The archangel had just enough time to open his eyes and stare blearily up at his brother before Lucifer flicked his wrist, and Gabriel felt himself go flying.


	10. A Little Appointment with T & A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel wakes up in a bathroom with a few new parts.  
> Genderbent AU

“Hurk—”

The motion sickness was even worse the third time. Gabriel wondered how many more ‘paces’ Lucifer thought he had.

“Isn’t it bad enough you killed me?” he demanded, then frowned.

That… Was not his voice. Gabriel lifted a hand to his throat. … Was it? A simple look down was all the answer it took. Gabriel threw up his hands and pressed his lips together.

Only, really, he wasn’t a ‘he’ anymore, per se…

Gabriel rolled her eyes, shrugged, and cupped her breasts experimentally. They weren’t huge or anything (though Gabriel knew the kind of chests he’d encountered while dabbling in Casa Erotica weren’t exactly… Realistic…) but they at least suited the body (vessel?). No, the real problem was, Gabriel thought looking up to eye level, the height.

Or lack thereof.

Now, Gabriel’s usual form was on the short end of the stick, 5’8”. He was no supermodel either, not like Sam or, admittedly, Dean. But Gabriel had a very strong attachment to his vessel’s appearance. It was, after all, the dedicated work of centuries. And if some of the other pagan gods had called him goofy-looking, well that was their problem. It wasn’t like it had ever prevented him from getting ass, even if it was illusionary.

But this?

This was downright insulting.

“Oh, come _on_!”

Gabriel, who was only just getting over the shock of so many transitions to realize she was in a women’s restroom, glared at the reflection in the mirror, though it was not wholly unpleasant. She had a well-sculpted, if a bit large, nose, big amber eyes, and a mischievous set to her mouth; all things that felt at least a little familiar. And the compact curviness wasn’t bad either. The thing was, she barely cleared the 5’ mark.

If Gabriel had been insecure about his height as a man, this was a million times worse.

But, she still had no powers. So it was just a matter of going out and facing the embarrassing bullshit dear Luci had set up. And, well… Gabriel was a little curious. Was this a just-Gabriel thing, or was Sam a girl too?

Mmmm, girl Sam…                                                                                             

The thought hadn’t ever occurred to Gabriel before, since despite his long hair and penchant for feelings that Dean deemed feminine for no real reason, Sam was a very, very masculine specimen. A work of art, really. But a Sammy-girl could be just as delicious of a prospect as Sammy-boy himself...

And to be honest, it was that thought that propelled Gabriel out of the restroom and into the hallway of… Actually, Gabriel had no idea where the heck she was. It didn’t look like a school, thank Dad. And it wasn’t the Winchester bunker either. The lighting was dim, the floor a little grimy…

And then Gabriel picked up on a chorus of drunken shouts.

A bar?

She glanced back. A bar with really nice bathrooms.

“Oh, what the hey,” she muttered, and strode down the hall towards the noise.

Surprisingly, she fell into the slight swagger-swing of walking with so many curves easily. Not that Gabriel hadn’t had a little bit of genderswapped fun as Loki, but… Without powers, she felt a lot more locked into the body.

A true lover of flair, she swung around the corner and stepped into, shock and awe, a bar. Nice place, a little dingy. It had an atmosphere about it, though. A dart board and a pinball machine were nestled in the corner, and mismatched stools surrounded the square bar. Everyone went silent, and Gabriel pursed her lips uncomfortably.

The overuse of leather and army surplus was practically screaming ‘bar full of hunters’. And with her powers still on the fritz, Gabriel didn’t exactly like her chances if they realized she was anything less than what she appeared to be.

Whatever she appeared to be.

Two ladies by the bar were studying her especially closely, eyes narrowed. The shorter one nudged the taller one. And when the taller girl nodded and met Gabriel’s eyes, a shot of fire leapt down the archangel’s throat. She’d recognize those hazel hues anywhere.

Gabriel blinked at the Winchesters for a few long moments. They were definitely curvier, but still pretty built. Not that he had expected anything less. The brunette huntress patted Dean (Deanna? Sure, that worked.) on the shoulder, set her half-finished bottle of beer on the bar with a clank, and walked up to Gabriel slowly. At that, the other patrons of the bar went back to whatever hunterly things they had been doing before. Sam came to a stop half a foot from Gabriel. The archangel noted with a twinge of relief that Sam was a bit shorter too. Not much, she topped out around 5’11”, it looked like. Which actually expanded the already significant height difference between them as men by like three inches, and made it very, very hard not to stare at Sam’s boobs, since they were at eye level and all. But really it could have been worse.

The archangel managed, forcefully, to drag her eyes up from modest, plaid-covered cleavage.

“Heya, Sam,” Gabriel greeted quietly, dazzled by the way the hair fell around Sam’s face, so familiar but somehow different with the softened curve of her jaw.

“The trickster,” the brunette observed, eyes narrowed dangerously. “We killed you. What are you doing here?”

“Uh… Surprise?”

Sam’s lips pressed together, and she tilted her head a bit to the side with a sharp jerk, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath through her nose, two. Then she slung an arm around the back of Gabriel’s shoulders, gripping the angel’s bicep tightly. With a tense smile, Sam steered Gabriel over to the bar and forced her to sit between herself and Deanna.

“Hey Deano,” Gabriel greeted, snatching Sam’s beer from the bartop and taking a swig before either of the sisters could do anything about it.

“Why are you here?” Deanna hissed, her green eyes narrowed sharply.

Gabriel grinned, irises flashing gold.

“I missed Sammy-girl’s company.”

Sam twitched, grabbed her drink from Gabriel. Deanna was about to say something else when a blond guy sidled up to them with a beer in hand.

“One for your friend?” he offered, smirking.

“Thanks, Joe, but—” Sam began to protest.

“Thanks, sweetheart!” Gabriel cut her off, accepting the drink from Joe.

He shot her a wink, and Gabriel waggled her eyebrows in return. Joe wandered off, and Gabriel nudged Deanna with an elbow.

“He’s a looker,” she prompted playfully.

Deanna rolled her eyes. Sam’s jaw clenched.

“Shut. Up.”

“Ooh, testy. Do you like him too, then, Sambina? I’m not a big fan of love triangles—”

It was Deanna that grabbed Gabriel’s collar, dragging her close to better threaten her.

“You shut the hell up,” she growled.

“Uh, rude,” Gabriel retorted calmly.

“Bite me, you over-sugared bitch.”

“Maybe later, sweetheart. Right now I’ve got my eye on that hot sister of yours.”

Gabriel wasn’t sure if she felt her back hit the floor or the sting of a fist to the cheek first. Either way, when she sat up on her elbows to get Deanna and Sam back into view, her eyes had darkened nearly to brown. Gabriel was an archangel. Gabriel did not take shit like that sitting down, not even without her powers.

“Don’t ever, _ever_ talk about Sammy like that,” ordered Deanna.

Blood was buzzing so loudly in Gabriel’s ears that she didn’t even realize the bar had gone silent until a smash of glass shattered the silence. Joe, looking worried and flustered, started picking up glass without looking away from the brewing fight. Gabriel stood, rolling her shoulders and feeling the rush of her wings, even if no one could see them.

“I did _not_ wanna have to do this,” she said, with an angry smile, eyes flashing. “But you forced my hand. Again.”

“We killed you last time, you crazy bitch, and we’ll do it again,” said Deanna, arms open wide in a ‘come at me’ gesture.

Gabriel snorted, raised an eyebrow, and pointed at Deanna with her index fingers and thumbs.

“You didn’t kill jack shit, _princess_.”

“Second time’s the charm,” Deanna snarled, flipping a wisp of hair out of her eyes.

“Deanna, w—”

“Shut up, Sammy! Just hand me a friggin’ barstool! I’m gonna stake this bitch!”

Gabriel threw back her head and laughed, hard and loud.

“Oh, come on, Deano, what makes you think it’ll work this time?”

Gabriel glanced out of the corners of her eyes and saw the other hunters in the bar ringing around them, barring them in. Sam, Deanna, and Gabriel. Two on one, ostensibly, although Sam at least looked conflicted about starting a monster fight in the middle of a friend’s roadhouse.

“We’ll just keep killing you til it sticks,” the elder Winchester insisted, jutting out her chin.

“Sorry, Joe. We’ll pay you and your dad back,” Sam promised, picking up a barstool and snapping the bottom sections of two legs.

Gabriel scowled. This was not how she wanted meeting cute Sammy-girl to go. At all. In fact, it was pretty much the complete opposite of what she had wanted. But she still owed Deanna for that punch, at the very least. And tricksters and archangels always got even.

With a rush of speed, the Winchester sisters leapt at her, and Gabriel dove out of the way. She had forgotten, again, that Lucifer was playing keepsies with her powers.

Deanna tried to swipe her from the side, and Gabriel took the opportunity to knee her right in the gut. However, she wasn’t used to having to actually work at fast-paced fighting, as opposed to teleporting. A flaw, she admitted to herself. One she probably ought to work on someday.

For the time being, she quickly found herself backed up against the bar with two stakes pointed at her heart and her hands raised in at least partially mocking surrender.

“Can’t we all just get along?” Gabriel asked mildly, flipping a strand of golden-brown hair over her shoulder.

“Nice try.”

“Don’t I get a last request?” she asked.

The Winchester sisters shot each other a look.

“Uh, no,” Sam said firmly.

“Come on, Sambina, what if I end up saving your life someday?”

“Fat chance,” the brunette replied.

Then, suddenly, the Winchesters were shoved apart. Gabriel stared at the rugged, sharp-jawed blonde in front of her, and let out a teasing wolf-whistle.

“Luci?”

Lucifer rolled her eyes, which were tastefully accentuated by mascara-laced lashes, tugging Gabriel away from the bar by her wrist.

“A bar fight, Gabriel? Really? You’re hopeless.”

“You’re the one who popped me in right after our first meeting. What did you expect?” demanded Gabriel huffily. “Maybe if she didn’t recognize me—”

“What good,” Lucifer asked pointedly, “would that do anyone? If you wish to court my True Vessel outside these exercises, you’ll have to get used to taking responsibility for your actions.”

“We-he-ell!” Gabriel scoffed. “You, lecturing me on responsibility? I really have fallen far!”

Lucifer’s eyes flashed, a cold, powerful look that spoke ‘God’s second-born’ and Gabriel knew she had made a mistake.

“This is punishment for sneaking around behind my back, Gabriel. These trials aren’t meant to be _fun_. But if you’re serious about a romantic relationship with Sam Winchester, you had better make sure you’re ready to commit to this. I won’t let you run away from your decision.”

Something lurched in Gabriel’s chest, and she nodded.

“Fine, Luci. I’m taking this seriously, alright?”

Lucifer scoffed, but released Gabriel’s arm. She spun the both of them around, to face the frozen humans in the bar.

“Good. Now try… Again.”

Everyone looked shocked that Gabriel had somehow made it outside their mob-like circle.

“Alright, fine, I surrender,” said Gabriel. “You wanna know what I’m doing here? What my big plan is?”

“No,” answered Deanna abruptly, but Sam held a hand out to stop her.

“Tell us,” the brunette insisted, her mouth pursed.

“Truth is,” Gabriel looked at the ground, then back up “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Sammy-girl. Promise I’m not up to anything nefarious. Let me buy you a drink.”

“Now, see, we just don’t believe you,” said Deanna. “Plus we don’t do casual drinks with _monsters_.”

Gabriel set her jaw harshly.

“Thanks, but I wasn’t asking you,” the archangel pointed out. “Why don’t you let little sis answer for herself, Deano?”

Sam actually looked a little amused at that, the corners of her pink lips twitching.

“The answer’s still no,” she said. “Deanna’s right. A monster’s a monster.”

But, Gabriel noted with a tinge of pride, Sam did not move to raise her makeshift stake again.

“Oh, you’ll see. You two will warm up to me eventually, Nancy Drew,” she answered, feeling a lot more chipper.

The Winchester sisters both looked unconvinced of that. Gabriel pressed her lips together to keep from grinning. Whether in this world or the real one, she knew there was no separating their destinies. The Winchesters were important to Heaven, and Gabriel was an archangel, after all.

With a spring in her step, Gabriel made her way closer to Sam, smoothly grabbing the wrist the taller woman held the stake in and raising it. She had to ease up on tiptoes to even get close to face-level with Sam, but it was worth it. And Deanna, for some reason, didn’t interfere.

“What are you—?”

However, much to Gabriel’s chagrin, she was still too short. Mouth twisting halfway to a pout, she used her free hand to tug on the collar of Sam’s button-up, forcing the taller woman to duck down. With a satisfied noise, Gabriel touched her lips to Sam’s.

It was odd, but in a good way. Nothing like kissing guy Sam. Instead of firm, chapped lips, this Sam had a softer mouth with fuller lips. No lip gloss, which was a bit of a disappointment but also so incredibly Sammy that Gabriel found a little balloon of happiness swelling in her chest.

Still, there was no interference from Deanna, Joe, or any of the roadhouse’s other patrons. The archangel took this as a blessing to continue the kiss.

And then with a sharp tug on the back of her collar, Gabriel was pulled out of the chaste lip-to-lip contact.

“That’s enough.”

A pleased laugh burst from Gabriel’s still-tingling lips. Lucifer sounded jealous.

With a toss that could only result from her elder sibling’s supernatural strength, Gabriel was sent tumbling through time and space again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't even plan for the bar fight, it just kind of... Happened. I ended up having to recruit Lucifer to at least attempt restoring order. I have no idea what's going on with these characters anymore. Thankfully, both Lucifer and I will make sure Gabriel really gets his comeuppance in the next chapter.


	11. Little Angels Are Our Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel's back to normal! Or not. Team Free Will, the real one, gets saddled with a bitty archangel.  
> Baby Angel AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, this is a long chapter. The longest one so far.   
> The perspective is pretty distanced from Gabriel, to make it easier to understand.

When he – finally a he again – caught his balance, Gabriel knew immediately that something was wrong, but couldn’t quite put his finger on what. The figurative phrase brought his attention to his hand itself. He clenched it with a frown. Tiny fingers and a pudgy palm. Something was wrong about that, but… What?

And then someone big was leaning down and picking him up. The face was unfamiliar; a human with blond hair and blue eyes and a little bit of stubble. But the wicked gleam behind his eyes was anything but alien. Gabriel’s face split in a wide grin.

“Luci!”

He squirmed in his big brother’s hold, wanting to be released so he could fly into his brother’s chest for a proper hug. Lucifer just chuckled fondly, with an odd twist to his mouth like he was about to play a trick.

There was a flutter of wings, and Lucifer looked up and right.

“Lucifer.”

That was Michael. And he sounded grumpy.

“Hey, Michael,” greeted Lucifer, clearly pleased with himself.

“What have you done to Gabriel?”

The blond just smiled and shrugged. Gabriel struggled and twisted in his big brother’s grip, until he had turned himself to face Michael. He too was wearing an odd face, a human visage with dark hair. Though his brothers looked weird, Gabriel found that the humans they had chosen to mimic suited them very well.

“Mike-a!” the littlest archangel greeted, drawing Michael’s stern gaze away from Lucifer and towards him with an odd jolt.

“Hello, Gabriel…”

Michael shifted uncomfortably, clearly restraining himself from doing… Something. From behind Gabriel, Lucifer looked up at Michael from under his lashes and grinned a little.

“You wanna cuddle him, Michael?” he teased.

Michael shot him a look burning with blue and white fire, but Lucifer just laughed.

“Change him back,” the eldest archangel ordered. “It’s undignified.”

Lucifer scoffed, pitching Gabriel at Michael to free his arms for posturing. Frantically, Michael encircled Gabriel, pulling the small child out of the air and safely into his broad chest.

“If any of us is meant for the undignified, it’s Gabriel,” said Lucifer, tossing out an arm casually.

“Archangels were not meant for this… Human childhood,” Michael protested, even as he shifted his posture to accommodate Gabriel, to encircle and protect him.

“Oh, come on. I just wanna see how my bunk buddy will react.”

“Lucifer, no.”

Michael was clearly done arguing. Lucifer pulled a teasing little half-frown that clearly said he wasn’t done. Gabriel’s mouth was twisted down in determination as he pushed his stubby little fingers together, lacking the motor control to snap even though he appeared to know the action would get him whatever he wanted. Lucifer waved his hand and Gabriel’s mouth split into a grin as a chocolate bar filled his chubby fist. He munched on it happily, while just above his little head, Michael’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“So, Gabe,” Lucifer began, and found wide butterscotch eyes on him. “Would you like to play a game with me?”

Gabriel nodded without hesitation.

“ _Lucifer_.”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, Michael,” the devil said with a grin befitting his title. “You think he’s adorable, even though you don’t want to. Come on, I’ll let you watch.”

Michael’s face shifted through several vaguely-irate expressions. Lucifer waited patiently. The eldest archangel held Gabriel out and studied him. Big golden eyes, a fluffy halo of unruly hair, fingers and toes so small they made something in Michael’s chest tighten with the need to _protect_ —

“Fine,” he relented.

Lucifer cheered. Gabriel just looked innocently confused. It would be a first, Michael admitted to himself.

“But!”

Lucifer groaned.

“No fun.”

“But,” Michael repeated, voice lower. “You cannot take him to the real Sam and Dean Winchester.”

“What? Come on, Michael—”

“He is… A handful, but he’s still our brother, Lucifer.”

“What if I wipe their memories afterward?” the blond offered.

Michael looked conflicted. He avoided Lucifer’s eager gaze for a long moment.

“Fine. But do it properly. So they won’t remember. Ever.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Lucifer waved his hand like he was brushing away Michael’s concerns, and with a flit of powerful archangel wings the Men of Letters Bunker materialized around them. Michael set Gabriel down on the ground, and the little archangel’s chubby cheeks were covered in chocolate. For the first time, the two elder archangels noticed Gabriel’s wings, which had manifested in physical form due to the toddler’s lack of control over his residual power. The gold feathers drooped to the floor haphazardly; Gabriel’s wings, while small indeed to accommodate his childish form, were much too big for him. Lucifer smiled, nudged his big brother.

“Cute, isn’t he?”

Michael’s expression trembled, and he furrowed his brow.

“It… Reminds me of when our Father was around.”

A shudder ripped up Lucifer’s spine, but he managed a smile that was only slightly painful.

“I bet Dad would get a kick out of this,” the blond said.

The two of them vanished, before Gabriel could latch onto them.

With the disappearance of his brothers, Gabriel’s lower lip trembled. A whimper dribbled out of his mouth, followed quickly by an ear-shattering shriek. Distantly, there was a loud crash, a thud, and a muffled “son of a bitch!”

Despite Dean’s rather vocal response to the disturbance, it was Castiel who reached the wailing archangel first. He stood there for a few seconds with a confused frown.

“Gabriel?” he asked.

The archangel looked up at Castiel and quieted a little, recognizing something warm and familiar about the other angel’s grace, but nothing else. When Castiel crouched down to pick him up, Gabriel screamed again.

“Luci!” he cried, fat little tears streaking down his cheeks. “Mike-a!”

Dean practically tripped into the room, clutching his aching head.

“Jesus, Cas, what the hell—”

Castiel blinked.

“It’s Gabriel,” he told Dean, as if that explained everything.

Dean looked down at the screaming toddler and grimaced. Oh yeah, he was gonna have flashbacks to taking care of that little shifter baby for sure. The two of them were just standing there helplessly when Sam ran in.

“Dude, what the hell is going on out… Here?”

He blinked, looking down at the tiny Gabriel on the bunker floor. He opened his mouth to say something, but as he did, Gabriel’s teary little butterscotch eyes locked on him.

The crying stopped.

But far from being terrified into silence by Sam’s ridiculous stature, Gabriel looked mesmerized. As if Sam was the most interesting, beautiful thing he had ever seen. Like he was made of stardust and diamonds. Like he was something pure. The brunette shifted under the stare. No one had ever looked at him like that. Especially a kid.

“Sam!”

And with a little flutter of his too-large gold wings, the tiny archangel slammed into Sam’s chest. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the kid to prevent him from falling. Dean grinned as if he were about to make a comment, and Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“What do we do with him?” he asked Castiel, turning away from his brother. “How did he even get here? I thought he was dead.”

The angel’s brow furrowed.

“I’m not sure what we are meant to do with him,” he admitted gruffly, tilting his head. “But Gabriel has been with Michael and Lucifer in Heaven, working to restore and restructure it. He faked his death when fighting Lucifer in 2009. However, the other archangels are the only beings who could put him in this state.”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“Heavyweight douchenozzles, round two. Even if they were fucking with him, why’d they dump him on _us_?” he demanded.

“Dean!” Sam hissed, covering Gabriel’s little ears by pressing one to his chest and cupping one of his large hands around the other.

“What?” the elder Winchester protested testily. “He’s an archangel, not a real kid!”

Frustration and embarrassment warred on Sam’s face, before his expression settled into a protective scowl. Something leapt in his chest when Gabriel nuzzled into his shirt, and he shifted his hold on the tiny angel, making sure to steer clear of his gold wings, for fear of ruffling the feathers.

“Jerk,” muttered Sam, trying to ignore the way his heart stuttered when one of Gabriel’s little hands closed around the plaid of his shirt.

It was just that Gabriel was so _small_. And helpless. And even though Dean was the only one who’d truly ever had a shot at an apple pie life, Sam had seen that kind of future for himself, once. With Jess. The white picket fence, the two kids, hell even the minivans and stupid animated movies. He’d wanted all of that once, even though after ten years of hell and heartbreak he knew it wasn’t in the cards for someone like him.

“Bitch,” Dean answered thickly, eyes cornering away from the utterly tender look his brother was bestowing on the miniaturized archangel in his arms.

None of them had any idea what they’re supposed to do, so they just stood there. And then Gabriel pulled back from Sam just enough to look him in the eye and tugged on the bit of the brunette’s shirt still clutched between his little fingers.

“Sam?”

Sam choked something painful down and tried to smile.

“Yeah, Gabriel?”

The archangel looked down, brow furrowed in intense concentration. Then he met Sam’s eyes again, earnestly.

“Hungry,” he insisted.

And no one argued with the little tyke, even though there were still streaks of dried chocolate on his mouth, because there were tear tracks and snot too. Sam walked into the bunker’s kitchen with Gabriel in tow and Dean wondered how his overly-cleanly kid brother was not freaking out over the archangel snot smeared onto the front of one of his favorite shirts.

Castiel just came along for the ride, curious but unconcerned.

“What do little kids eat?” Sam muttered, rifling through the cupboards with one hand while his other arm encircled Gabriel, large fingers hooking under the angel’s knees to keep him sitting upright.

Dean shrugged.

“Applesauce?” he suggested.

Sam threw him a flat look.

“We don’t have applesauce, Dean.”

“Hey, you were the one asking for suggestions!”

Sam sighed loudly. Meanwhile, Gabriel had tangled his pudgy fingers into the hunter’s longish hair.

“Candy,” he suggested with a sly little grin.

“You are not getting candy,” protested Sam.

“Saaaaaaaaaaaam,” Gabriel whined, tugging almost-painfully on the locks of Sam’s hair he had managed to capture. “Candy!”

“Jesus,” Dean muttered. “Just get the brat some candy. He can handle it, he’s an archangel.”

Gabriel stuck his tongue out at Dean and cuddled closer to Sam. Dean threw up his hands in frustration. Castiel tilted his head.

“Cas?” Sam asked.

“I don’t believe any harm would come to him if you chose to feed him candy, no,” Castiel answered without any further need for elaboration on Sam’s part.

And so, even though it went against his better judgment, Sam dug into the candy stash Charlie had left in their kitchen, and pulled out a little package of M&Ms. Gabriel’s eyes lit up, and he released Sam’s hair in favor of grabbing eagerly for the chocolate.

However, once he had it in hand, he didn’t quite have the dexterity to open it. Gabriel looked down at the bag of M&Ms, then at Sam’s one free hand. Finally, his eyes settled on Castiel. With determined insistence, he held out the packet. Tilting his head, Castiel accepted the M&Ms. Then he just stood there, holding them. Gabriel frowned.

“Open!” he ordered, wings flaring a bit.

Castiel ripped an edge off the bag of candies, then handed them back to Gabriel. Watching with eager golden eyes, Gabriel poured a few M&Ms into his palm.

“What do you say?” prompted Sam.

Gabriel thought about that for a moment, looking up at the kitchen’s white ceiling. Deciding he needed a little brain food, the toddler popped a green M&M into his mouth and chewed slowly.

“Thank you,” he remembered, looking a little too proud of himself.

Castiel found himself smiling just a little.

“You’re welcome, Gabriel.”

Gabriel’s little wings fluttered a bit at that, and he held out an M&M to Castiel. It was blue. Castiel accepted the gift from his formerly-elder brother, and placed it on his tongue to eat, even though it was difficult to enjoy the taste of the chocolate itself with each individual molecule vying for his attention. Gabriel seemed to have no problem with that. In fact, the cherubic archangel had stuffed another three of the candies into his mouth in the time it took Castiel to eat his one.

Then, he held out a red M&M in front of Sam’s nose. The brunette went to take the little chocolate with his free hand, but as he did, Gabriel tugged his chubby little palm away, closing his fingers over the candy.

“No,” he insisted firmly.

Sam lowered his hand, confused.

“Isn’t that one for me?” he questioned.

“Yes.”

Gabriel brought his little hand up to Sam’s mouth insistently. It took a few seconds, but the hunter finally realized that, for whatever reason, Gabriel wanted him to accept the candy directly from his hand. For the very first time, though if Michael and Lucifer left Gabriel with them for much longer he was sure it wouldn’t be the last, Sam wished he’d had more experience dealing with children.

As dexterously as he could, Sam grabbed the M&M with his lips and pushed it back into his mouth. Gabriel grinned like he had accomplished something amazing and flapped his wings excitedly with a tiny whoosh-whoosh. Whether it was the burst of chocolate on his tongue or the clear glee of his new little charge, Sam felt a little surge of happiness skip through his veins.

And then Dean scoffed and the illusion was broken.

“You look like a stay-at-home dad, Sammy.”

The barest hint of a smirk flashed across Sam’s face before he stifled it.

“And you look like you’re jealous that Cas and I got M&Ms and you didn’t.”

Dean made a face that anyone but him would have labeled a pout.

“Can get my own damn M&Ms,” the green-eyed hunter grumbled.

He actually proceeded to do so once Gabriel passed around another set of M&Ms and didn’t offer him one. Not that he even had a particular fondness for M&Ms, really, but it was the principle of the thing. No kid was gonna get the better of Dean Winchester.

Then a green M&M plonked him on the head. Dean’s eyes narrowed.

Gabriel waved at him, grinning like an idiot. Pushing up his sleeves, Dean stalked up to the tiny archangel in his brother’s arms, prepared to rip his fluffy wings off, but ran chest-first into Castiel.

“What the hell, Cas?”

“He is only a child, Dean. We must be patient with him.”

“Patient!” parroted Gabriel, sticking a chubby little thumb in his mouth.

“Wh- But he just-!” Dean spluttered, gesticulating wildly as if that would help make his point.

Sam pulled a guilty little smirk that reminded Dean of Lucifer, and exactly whose fault the entire fiasco he found himself in was. In fact, Dean was about to shout for the older two archangels to get their feathery asses within punching distance when Gabriel interrupted with a shout.

“Sam! Play now!”

“Play?” Sam questioned, rolling the idea over in his head. “Alright. What do you want to play?”

Dean folded his hands and prayed silently, and Castiel just looked at him, not understanding the request or why anyone would be so averse to water fowl.

“Duck, Duck, Goose!” answered Gabriel, and Dean’s half-pleading expression crumbled into flat disappointment.

“No. No way. I’m not playing that,” the elder Winchester insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You have to,” Sam told him. “You can’t play Duck, Duck, Goose with just three people, Dean.”

“Nope! No way! Not gonna—”

But Dean’s protests lurched to a stop when a tiny wail hit his ears. Dean whipped his head around, and saw Gabriel’s lips trembling and his big golden eyes filling with tears. There was a long moment of silence, and Dean could almost physically feel the buildup for an earth-shaking scream. He held out for as long as he could, but eventually the fear for his eardrums was too much.

“Fine!” he relented. “I’ll play!”

Gabriel clapped his hands together happily, and Dean had the distinct feeling he had been played.

Soon, the two hunters and two angels were seated in a small circle in the bunker foyer. Sam and Dean had tag-teamed an explanation of the game for Castiel, and Gabriel had declared that he was the “chooser” first. No one bothered to argue about it, even Dean.

“Duck, duck, duck, duck…” Gabriel repeated, stretching up on his toes to tap the grown men on the head.

Even then, Sam still had to slouch when it was his turn to be ‘ducked’. Since there were so few of them Gabriel went around the circle three or four times before making his decision. With an especially loud thwap, he bopped Castiel on the head.

“Goose!”

Castiel sprung up, and Gabriel ran as fast as his little legs would carry him, letting out high-pitched, breathless squeals of excitement and fear. He had almost made it to Castiel’s empty spot in the circle, and Sam was cheering him on, when suddenly the archangel found himself airborne.

In truth, Castiel had snagged him with both hands around the middle, and raised him up into the air. Giggling, Gabriel kicked his feet and fluttered his wings.

“Cassie! Cassie!”

Dean cracked a smile at that, leaning back on his hands and studying Castiel’s eyes which were swirling with a mix of confused fondness.

“I have never had a younger brother before,” the angel admitted.

“Well, you’re doing a pretty awesome job,” Dean replied.

Gently, Gabriel patted Castiel’s hands.

“Leggo now. Sam.”

All three of the grown men hid smiles. Why Gabriel was so insistent that Sam was his favorite, none of them could really say. But there was something about the childish favoritism that felt nostalgic. Castiel set the tiny archangel down. He stumbled across the floor, almost tripping when one of his wings drooped too low and drug on the tile, but eventually hopped safely into Sam’s lap.

“Hi Sam.”

“Hi Gabriel.”

Castiel sat back down in the makeshift circle silently. Dean let the quiet stretch out, content to not have to play Duck, Duck Goose. Everything was peaceful for three minutes.

And then there was the fluttering of wings.

“Mike-a! Luci!” Gabriel cried, unable to hold back his excitement.

The tyke was halfway out of Sam’s lap before he remembered that it had been his brothers who had left him alone in the first place. A surly pout formed on his face and Gabriel tipped up his nose. He settled back onto Sam’s lap.

“Gabriel, come here,” Michael ordered.

“No!”

Lucifer laughed. Michael shot him a sparking glare.

“We have to go now,” the dark-haired archangel insisted.

“No! Sam,” said Gabriel, turning slightly to press his chubby cheek into Sam’s chest.

“You heard the kid,” said Dean, deciding it was more fun to razz Gabriel’s douche brothers than the bitty Messenger of God himself.

Michael clenched his hands into fists, half-tempted to come to blows with his True Vessel. Lucifer, meanwhile, was suddenly looking very put out. His ice-cold gaze zeroed in on the way Gabriel clutched at Sam’s plaid shirt. Even as a toddler Gabriel seemed to notice, and stuck out his little tongue.

“Mine,” he said playfully.

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed to slits. It only took him two long strides to cross the makeshift circle and snatch Gabriel away. Something primal in Sam’s gut twisted. He was on his feet before he realized what he was doing.

There was a loud crunch, and everything stopped.

Dean and Michael broke off their glaring contest, Castiel stopped mid-stride on his way to stand in front of Dean like a barrier, Gabriel’s cry cut off harshly. Sam, fist still raised, stared down at his hand. It was dripping blood.

Lucifer, brow furrowed, lifted the hand of the arm not holding Gabriel to his nose. When he held the hand out, palm up, to get a look at it, his fingers were slick with blood.

“You punched me,” the devil realized slowly.

Sam looked from his brother to Castiel, unsure whether to apologize or not. The broken nose was already healing, and Lucifer quite honestly deserved a punch in the face after everything he’d put Sam through…

But that hadn’t been why he’d hit him, and that was what made Sam uncomfortable.

Lucifer rubbed the blood between his fingers, then looked back up into Sam’s eyes. The hunter had the queasy feeling that Lucifer could see everything about him.

“Be thorough,” Michael ordered softly. “It might be best to wipe Gabriel’s memory too. You had your fun.”

Lucifer sneered, tempted to remind his brother that he had seemed to find it fun too. But after being physically attacked by his True Vessel, he didn’t quite have the capability for smart remarks.

Then the blond archangel waved his hand, and everything changed.


	12. Human Teenagers are Made of Gross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel wakes up already in the midst of Lucifer's next 'test' with no memory of his time as an angel tot. He finds himself less than pleased with human adolescence.  
> High School AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: it's been three years since I was in high school, and I have never been a teenage boy. So.

Gabriel woke up with his face smooshed against a hideously orange steel locker; number 69 by the numbers next to his head. He giggled a little, dizzily. His head was pounding.

His first coherent thought was, this is a high school. He didn’t have a second thought because he was too busy trying to process the unexplainable pit of dread oozing into his belly. He had never had a fear of high schools before…

And then Gabriel realized that something else didn’t feel right.

Looking down at himself then checking his reflection in a nearby glass display case proved his fears true. Lucifer had shoved him into the body of an awkward, mid-pubescent high school boy. Though he still looked somewhat like himself and the eyes of his reflection were definitely his own, the lines of his face hadn’t set in. There was an embarrassing smattering of stubble on his chin that was too short to even shave, he looked like a scrawny stick in the loose t-shirt he was wearing, and worst of all his hair was a floofy untamed mess. Gabriel cringed. Unlike humans, he had never had to wade his way through the slough of teen years, because his vessel had been at a lovely, optimal, fully-grown phase when Gabriel first possessed him.

Gabriel decided that brothers were cruel inventions and should be done without.

And then an arm was slung over his shoulder. Gabriel arched his back up and away from the touch like a cat, but the other person was determined and hung on.

“Hello, Gabriel.”

The blond with the personal space issues had to be Lucifer, Gabriel surmised, looking over at him. Slightly-ruffled hair, clear skin, and wearing a shirt that actually seemed to fit his lean-not-scrawny high-school frame. He looked a little too perfect, as per usual, which only served to cheese Gabriel off even more.

“What’s up, Luci?” the amber-eyed archangel asked with a fake smile.

“Just thought you ought to know the town gossip before I set you loose to make a fool of yourself,” Lucifer answered, tugging his brother closer.

Gabriel wondered if he had been going for a noogie and then reconsidered it since Gabriel’s hair was already a bird’s nest.

“What’s the news, then?”

“Precious little Sam Winchester, that’s what,” said Lucifer matter-of-factly. “Everyone’s talking about him. He’s new in town, you know. Weird family. Moves around a lot. His asshole brother with the GED picks him up in a clunky black Impala every day after school. Good grades, but kind of a freak. Almost got in a fight the other day, actually.”

Gabriel’s jaw tensed.

“A fight? With who?”

Lucifer’s eyes flashed mischievously.

“Easy there, tiger,” he teased. “Our Sammy can take care of himself.”

“Shut up. And he’s not your Sammy; no one’s sharing him with you.”

“He is my One True Vessel. Made just for me,” Lucifer sing-songed, pulling Gabriel away from the glass display case and into the high school’s worryingly large foyer which was filled with little cliques of teenagers. “So… I’d say I have more of a claim than you do, brother. But I’m willing to let you try, just to see you fall flat on your face.”

Gabriel’s golden eyes narrowed to slits, and he tugged out of Lucifer’s grasp. The words weren’t exactly original, smack-talk between brothers, but there was a chill in his brother’s voice that prickled the base of Gabriel’s neck.

“Who pissed in your cheerios this morning, Luci?”

Inexplicably, Lucifer lifted the back of his left hand to his nose, as if to catch a drop of blood. Gabriel gave him an odd look, and Lucifer snapped his hand back to his side.

“Anyway. I’ll be around, Gabriel.”

He vanished into thin air, as if to flaunt that he still had the use of his angelic powers. The dick. But Gabriel was quickly distracted when the doors to the school opened and a hush went over the crowd in the foyer. And though he was half the age the real Sam was, Gabriel would know Sam Winchester anywhere.

He wasn’t quite as tall as adult Sam, just cresting the six foot mark, and he was hunched a bit at the attention of the other students. His hands were shoved in his pockets. Without even thinking about it, Gabriel gravitated towards him as all the other kids backed away. By the time Sam had taken five strides into the foyer, there was a six-foot bubble around him and Gabriel was the only other person inside it.

A little shiver of nervousness shot up the archangel’s spine. He didn’t like the attention of a crowd. Not when he was vulnerable. Not when he was himself.

“Hi, Sam.”

The brunette looked down at him as if they’d never met before. Maybe they hadn’t. Who knew, with Lucifer in charge of the scenario?

“Hi,” he answered at last.

A low buzz filled the foyer, and Gabriel’s ears started to tinge red. He itched at one, trying to be casual about it, but Sam fixed him with a piercing look. The archangel flashed an awkward smile and scurried away into the crowd. Thankfully, he managed to shimmy between most of the gangly teenagers with ease.

Not-so-thankfully, he slammed face-first into someone’s chest.

“Owww…”

“Lucifer told me to give you this.”

Still dazed, Gabriel jolted his head back to look up. He met blazing blue eyes. Michael. Without another word, Michael shoved a schedule paper into Gabriel’s hands and vanished. Instinctively trying to slick back his hair a little, Gabriel grumbled about the laziness of his blond brother and studied his schedule. Latin, American Lit, Chemistry, Trigonometry? The archangel stuck out his tongue.

“Ew. Who would take a schedule like this?”

Sam Winchester, as it turned out.

When Gabriel arrived in Latin, a second before the bell rang, he found that the only seat open was in the very back row, next to Sam. He tried to smile and imagined smiting his brothers. Sam asked to borrow a pencil, and Gabriel handed him one. Other than that and Sam’s proficiency in Latin (unsurprising), the class was relatively uneventful. Gabriel was able to zone out and still answer correctly whenever he was called on; one of the perks of being around when the language was actually spoken.

When the bell rang, everyone else rushed out like crazed zoo animals making a bid for freedom. Gabriel watched Sam pack his bag carefully, then start as he realized there was a gaze on him.

“Oh, right. Your pencil,” the brunette said.

He handed it back while Gabriel was still wondering what pencil he was talking about, and their fingers brushed. For a split-second, all Gabriel’s focus was on Sam’s face, every soft, unfamiliar detail, and the hazel eyes that looked millennia less haunted than the ones he had come to admire. A spark of something electric and a little sickening buzzed up Gabriel’s arm, and he leapt away and dashed out into the hallway.

It turned out Sam’s packing up slowly was more strategic than anything. The swarm of bodies that overtook Gabriel as he made his escape, most taller than him, was a tidal wave of awful. Generously applied cologne and perfume, mixed liberally with some of the worst BO the archangel had ever had the misfortune of encountering. He would never complain about college students again as long as he lived. Gabriel was sure even Hell wasn’t so crowded and sweaty.

He caught sight of two freshmen swapping spit as he was churned down the hallway and his stomach turned. Not that kissing itself was gross, it was actually a rather inspired pastime that he usually congratulated humans on inventing. And not that he thought they ought not to be doing it, though the hallway of a public high school was both a less than romantic and less than sanitary location, but…

They were fourteen. And he was used to inhabiting a body that was thirty-plus. There was just no way to find any of these kids – these babies – attractive. And yet, somehow, he lamented, Sam’s gaze still made his heart pound, even when he was too young for Gabriel as he saw himself to consider hot.

Well, it was Sam, after all.

But the realization made Gabriel a bit uncomfortable. Sure he was in love with the guy but… How all-encompassing was that love supposed to be, anyway? He was an archangel, with consciousness so broad that it would defy human imagination, and yet all he could think about was Sam freakin’ Winchester.

After extracting himself from the thinning river of teenagers, Gabriel took his time getting to literature class, figuring having Sam in his class was a one-time deal. But, again, the class was full and lo and behold, in the back was Sam. Sam who had somehow acquired a pen to write with between classes. Gabriel’s palms began to sweat uncomfortably, and he decided teenage bodies were disgusting; suddenly all of the whining about high school in human literature and cinema made sense. Unfortunately, this understanding did not alleviate him of the physical awkwardness due to having to sit next to Sam. Sam who took dutiful notes, though Gabriel noticed him also writing in an illegibly tiny font in the margins of his notebook. Gabriel’s amber eyes glossed over the teacher, who was espousing the value of Twain, and his curiosity won out.

“What are you writing?” he whispered, nudging Sam in the arm with the eraser of his mechanical pencil.

Sam glanced over at him, startled. The colorful flecks in his eyes flashed, and he moved to cover the margins of his notebook with a hand. Gabriel quirked an eyebrow at the motion. Sam’s cheeks colored pink.

“Nothing,” Sam all but mouthed in response.

Gabriel pulled a face at him. The corner of Sam’s lips twitched a little, almost into a smile. To the archangel’s disappointment, he was ultimately able to hold it back. Though he tried a few more times to convince Sam to talk to him, the brunette stayed focused on note-taking and effectively ignored Gabriel for the rest of the class.

After literature there was lunch break. Thank Dad, Gabriel thought to himself, because archangels were not made for school. At all.

They also were not made for school cafeteria food, he realized after having to dump his tray of greasy rectangle pizza (which alone was enough to warrant some sort of smiting, honestly); all he kept was his carton of chocolate milk and the butterscotch bar that one of the girls in the lunch line with him had insisted to her friend was ‘the only good dessert’ the school served.

After stuffing his face with the bar and chugging the milk, Gabriel found he agreed. But without any friends to talk to, lunch was boring. Everyone seemed to be going about as usual.

Until Gabriel heard shouting.

He hurried over to the exterior lunch tables, and then past them onto the green of the school’s back lawn, close to the football practice field. And there was Sam, lip raised in a snarl, while another guy held up a very familiar red spiral notebook. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed and darkened. But before he could make a move, Sam had thrown a punch that sent the other guy into the dirt.

With a care he hadn’t shown for the dude who’d stolen from him, Sam picked up his notebook and clutched it to his chest like a lifeline. When he turned and saw Gabriel gaping at him, he paled.

“Don’t tell anyone—”

Gabriel frowned and held up a hand.

“I won’t, but… What the hell, Sambo?”

Sam made an awkward motion, somewhere between rolling his shoulders and shrugging. Gabriel pursed his lips and stalked up to the taller boy, grabbing his arm before dragging him onto the empty practice field. Once they were suitably far away from prying eyes and ears, Gabriel placed his hands on his hips and stared Sam down.

“It’s just… Stuff. I write, ok?” the brunette admitted, turning his head away.

Gabriel tilted his head.

“Write what?”

Sam shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Gabriel waited.

“Just… Stories.”

“About…?” the archangel prompted.

“Monsters.”

Silence settled into the air around them like a blanket, and made everything feel stifling and thick. Gabriel scratched his neck

“Cool,” he replied.

Sam blinked. Shifted. Ducked his head and then looked back up, meeting Gabriel’s eyes with an earnest glance.

“You don’t… Think that’s weird?”

“Nah. I’ve heard of weirder stuff,” Gabriel told him. “Trust me. You think monster stories are bizarre? You should have seen some of the angsty poetry my big brother wrote after Dad kicked him out.”

Gabriel knew Lucifer would hear the jibe, wherever he was, and allowed himself a smug grin. Even better, Sam actually chuckled. Maybe being a teenager wasn’t so bad. Ok, yes it was, but Sam could make anything worth it just by existing.

“We… We should probably go back,” Sam suggested, looking back at the doors to the cafeteria.

Gabriel glanced with him and saw the guy Sam had punched getting dizzily to his feet and starting towards the doors.

“And walk right back into that mess? Look, either that dick is gonna go tell the teachers what happened, or he’s gonna stuff it to try and save his pride. I dunno which. But honestly, I’ve got Chemistry next and after eating just a butterscotch bar I’m not ready for public education,” the archangel rambled.

“Oh, I’ve got Chemistry next too,” Sam said.

“Skip with me?” suggested Gabriel.

The brunette looked a little torn, but after glancing down at the notebook in his hands, he nodded. The two of them sat down in the grass, which was still a bit dewy. Gabriel could feel the seat of his pants getting wet and shifted a little, pulling a face.

“Hey, uh… I’m sure you must have told me at some point but… What’s your name?”

Gabriel almost smacked himself in the face. Idiot. He had never introduced himself.

“It’s uh… It’s Gabriel,” he answered.

Sam smiled.

“Like the archangel?”

“Exactly like the archangel.”

“Huh. Cool.”

Gabriel noticed all at once that Sam was leaning back a bit, with his palms flat on the ground. His butterscotch eyes flicked up to the brunette’s face, to make sure he was looking forward, then back down to his broad hand. Gabriel leaned back a bit.

Carefully… Carefully…

And then his hand landed squarely on top of Sam’s.

“Oops,” Gabriel muttered, studying the grass.

Sam leaned to the side, nudging him arm-to-arm. At his prompting, Gabriel looked up. Sam seemed amused.

“Are you flirting with me?”

The archangel opened his mouth with no idea what would come out.

“Is it working?”

Sam smirked.

“I dunno.”

Gabriel grinned back, falling into his stride.

“Should I try again until you figure it out?”

Sam’s expression turned unimpressed, but there was still a softness about his eyes that spoke of amusement. He was just about to say something when Gabriel was hauled to his feet by the back of his collar. He flailed a bit, but the hold on him was strong.

“This is it. Last test, Gabriel,” said a familiar voice.

He was only able to twist around and face Lucifer right before he found himself dropping through the air.

Lucifer waved goodbye with a douchey smirk.

Gabriel would have flipped him off, but a wave of motion sickness rolled over him and he curled into a ball, closing his eyes.


	13. The Devil's in the Fangirls (Starring Becky Rosen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel meets a cute boy at a convention for Carver Edlund's Supernatural books.  
> In-Show Supernatural Convention AU

“Good morning to you, good morning to you, our day is beginning so good morning to you!”

Gabriel groaned.

He was face-planted into fuzzy hotel carpet, and he couldn’t quite remember why.

“What the hell am I doing here?” he slurred, managing after two or three attempts to pick himself up off the floor and into an upright position.

“Oh, come on, little brother, you’re the one who wanted to come to this convention so badly!”

Convention?

Oh.

OH.

Convention. Right. The Supernatural convention. Gabriel tried to rub the pattern of the carpet fibers out of his cheek with a prickly, half-numb hand. He’d gotten way into the little cult series and begged his brothers to come with him to the convention. No one but Luce had agreed to go, though, which was probably the reason the blond felt entitled to being an annoying asshole.

He wasn’t wrong, though. As Gabriel shielded his eyes from the light streaming into the window, he managed to make out the hotel room’s alarm clock, which read 10:45. The convention proper would be starting soon. They’d gotten in sometime after midnight, which, Gabriel supposed, was the reason he apparently hadn’t made it to the bed before collapsing. Staying up late was easy normally, but after a stupidly long car ride, sometimes it was impossible.

“Whew. Ok,” Gabriel muttered to psyche himself up, hopping to his feet.

He indulged in a quick shower before donning his costume; well, really, more of a uniform. A janitor’s uniform, in fact. He tugged at it a little, scrutinizing himself in the mirror. So far so good. And then, he snagged a bag of fun-size candy bars off the nightstand. It was always good to have a prop, after all, and when you offered people candy they were more likely to focus on the food than the accuracy of your costume.

“All ready?”

 “Yeah. You coming?”

Luce scoffed, looking at him like he was an idiot. Gabriel stuck his tongue out at his brother, who proceeded to ignore him and flop onto one of the hotel beds, grabbing the TV remote. Well, if he wanted to come all this way just to hide out in the hotel, that wasn’t Gabriel’s problem. He took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and strode confidently out the door.

The first thing he saw when he hit the lobby was a sea of leather and plaid. Of course. Gabriel rolled his eyes a little but smiled, and popped a fun-size Snickers into his mouth. It was only once he stepped down into the hubbub that he realized most of the Sams and Deans were actually women. Which in turn meant that though Gabriel was quite short himself, he was actually at least a tiny bit taller than most of the other con-goers.

“Oh. My. God.”

Gabriel wasn’t quite sure the comment was directed at him until a woman with streaky blonde hair rushed up and clasped his free hand in hers.

“Uh… Hey there?”

“Hi!” she greeted cheerfully. “I’m Becky Rosen, the con organizer.”

Oh.

Wow.

“Wow,” Gabriel repeated aloud. “That’s… Wow. You’re the head of that one fan website, right?”

At the mention of her site, Becky’s eyes sparkled.

“Yes!” she took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts, then bounced on. “Anyway, I just came over to say that your costume looks great! You did a spot-on Trickster, I could tell right away!”

The tips of Gabriel’s ears went hot and prickly. He grinned.

“Thanks, Becky.”

She patted his hand.

“There’s going to be a costume contest in a couple hours, you know. You should enter!” Becky encouraged, before something probably important caught her attention and he dashed off.

She was certainly a whirlwind. Gabriel wondered if there was any truth to the rumors that she was dating the author of the Supernatural books, Carver Edlund. It would certainly be an… Interesting dynamic, anyway. Gabriel was still thinking that as he began walking over to the sign-ups for the costume contest.

And he smacked straight into someone’s chest.

Someone’s very solid chest. Gabriel practically bounced off the guy, and thought for a second that he was going to find himself on the floor. But at the last minute, two large hands cradled his back, each one cupped just over a shoulder blade. Dizzily, Gabriel looked up into kaleidoscopic hazel eyes.

“Sorry,” the other guy muttered, pulling Gabriel upright and then taking his hands off his back.

“Uh.”

The guy was absolutely massive. At least a couple inches over six feet, but Gabriel wasn’t good at judging height. His soft brown hair curled around his ears and fell so that it just brushed his broad shoulders. With the plaid button-up and canvas jacket, there really was no mistaking who he was dressed as.

“No… Problem,” Gabriel said at last, shaking himself out of his gawking stare.

“Um, yeah. I, uh…”

It was the tall guy’s turn to look a little flustered, and he cast his large arms to one side as if looking for something to do with them. The action was surprisingly cute for someone of his stature. Then his gaze locked on something and his brow furrowed. Gabriel followed the look, and saw that his bag of candy bars had spilled all over the floor. They were individually wrapped, so no harm done, but…

“Oh, you dropped your—”

Both Gabriel and the brunette dropped down to their knees to put the candy back in the bag. Their fingers brushed a few times, and Gabriel was sure his heart was about to stop. Finally, thankfully, the chocolate was all back where it belonged. The tall guy, already crouched on his haunches, offered Gabriel a hand. With probably a little too much thought for such a short amount of time, he accepted and was tugged to his feet.

“I… I’m Sam, by the way,” the brunette said.

“I can see that,” teased Gabriel.

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, tried to hide a smile, and then laughed a little when he couldn’t. It was then that both men noticed they were still holding hands. They pulled away simultaneously as if they’d been scalded.

“Yeah, well. It’s my real name too,” Sam said to alleviate the tension hanging in the air, carding a hand through his long brown hair and clearing his throat.

Gabriel frowned contemplatively.

“What’re the odds of that?”

Sam gave him a slightly skeptical expression in return, crossing his big arms over his chest.

“It’s not like Sam is that odd of a name…” he pointed out.

“You’ve got a point,” Gabriel agreed. “The name’s Gabriel.”

“Nice to meet you, Gabriel. Interesting costume choice, by the way. I wouldn’t have thought of the Trickster.”

Gabriel felt a smug grin lifting the corners of his mouth. He shrugged.

“Well, everyone and their brother dresses up as Sam and Dean, pun intended. No offense though.”

Sam just laughed in response.

“No, it’s true.”

“You look the most like how I imagined him though,” admitted Gabriel.

Sam ducked his head, hiding a twitchy smile. He looked pleased.

“Well, same to you. About the Trickster I mean. Good thing I don’t have a brother, or I’d have to watch out for him, huh?”

“Nah. You can trust me, Sambo!”

He wasn’t sure where he got the courage to do it, but Gabriel nudged Sam with his shoulder a little, grinning. Then he walked on to where the costume contest sign-ups were. He kept his amber eyes trained in front of him, but eventually there was a set of large footfalls behind him, and Gabriel did a little fist-pump close to his chest so no one could see.

At the sign-up booth, he signed his name with a flourish. When he turned back, Sam was watching him with a soft smirk.

“Come on, you should sign up too!” the pretend Trickster prodded.

“I don’t know…”

“What’ve you got to lose?”

Sam thought about it for a moment.

“My dignity?” he suggested, picking up the pen.

Gabriel scoffed and mimed waving the thought away as if it were a smell that personally offended him. Sam signed up as well, then turned his attention back to Gabriel.

“What do you think so far?” the brunette asked.

“Of the con?”

Sam nodded. His eyes were more earnest than Gabriel was expecting, and a cold tingle hit his neck.

“Honestly, I haven’t seen much,” Gabriel admitted, running his fingers through his sandy, slicked-back hair.

“Oh, you’ve _got_ to see some of the crap they’ve got for sale!” said Sam.

And before he could come up with any sort of impressive, witty answer, Gabriel found himself tugged along through the lobby to a large room full of booths. The biggest one was selling signed copies of the Supernatural books themselves. A few others scattered nearby had knickknacks; coffee mugs, magnets, that sort of thing. And then there was the art.

At least ten booths scattered with prints of various characters, immediately discernable by their clothing, or other distinctive features. Gabriel ran the pads of his fingers gently across a laminated picture featuring an angel.

“Angels?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, that’s right!” Sam piped up. “You weren’t at last year’s convention. Well, Mr. Edlund mentioned they were going to start publishing again, and that angels would be involved. There was a, uh… A bit of an info leak, turns out there’s gonna be some angel named Castiel showing up. Everyone’s been guessing what he’ll look like.”

“Huh…” Gabriel mused, and rubbed his temple.

It felt like something was pressing against the back of his eyes, straining to get out. He hissed a little in pain and Sam put a large hand on his shoulder, face scrunched cutely in worry. The sweet, empathetic look the brunette was making dissolved the pain almost immediately, and Gabriel smiled a bit.

“Of course, Becky’s read the drafts,” Sam mentioned under his breath. “So I trust her interpretation best. She says he wears a trench coat.”

Gabriel looked at Sam like he’d totally lost his marbles.

“An angel? In a trench coat?”

Sam shrugged.

“That’s what she said.”

“So,” Gabriel mused, “you and Becky know each other pretty well, then?”

Sam rubbed his arm uncomfortably.

“Yeah, well…” he muttered.

The two of them were silent for a long moment. Gabriel wondered if Sam wore plaid regularly, and considered suggesting the idea to him if not. Or at least button-ups. With the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Mmmm.

Sam cleared his throat.

“I, uh… I actually also heard we’re gonna learn something new about the Trickster,” the brunette offered.

Gabriel perked up.

“Really?”

Sam laughed.

“You seem excited.”

“Well, he’s… He’s my favorite,” Gabriel defended. “I mean, he’s like the only monster to survive Sam and Dean. Pretty badass, right, Sammy?”

“I guess that’s true,” the taller man conceded, nudging back when Gabriel jostled him playfully.

Their eyes met for one sparking moment, and Gabriel felt a chill zigzag through his fingers and up his arms. He instinctively licked his lips before he’d even realized they were dry.

“So what do you like about Sam?” he asked, tearing his amber eyes away, and locking them on a little plush Dean in a tiny leather jacket hanging from one of the booths.

Thankfully none of the people trying to sell their wares decided to push their way into the moment. Actually, most of them made interested or smug faces before turning their attention to other potential customers.

“Just identify with him best, I guess,” said Sam. “You know, he… He gets a lot of crap thrown at him, but he keeps trying to do the right thing. That’s the kinda person I want to be.”

Gabriel could hear the almost tender smile in Sam’s voice, and felt the edges of his own mouth tilting upwards in return. He nodded, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of the janitor uniform.

“Yeah. Sam’s my favorite of the brothers.”

He managed what he hoped was a tricksterish wink, and then it was Sam who was smiling and glancing away. Then a high-pitched squeal broke the half-comfortable silence.

“Oh, you two look so cute together!”

Gabriel blinked hard, and suddenly Becky had a hand each of his and Sam’s.

“Uh… What?” Sam asked skeptically.

“I never even considered it,” the convention organizer babbled, eyes lighting up. “But with the Trickster being—ooh, spoilers! Anyway, just trust me, they’d be so cute together! Although there is Mystery Spot to get over and… Well, all the better, angst really gets the shippers going…”

Gabriel glanced up at Sam, to see if the taller man looked as dizzy as him. He did, the faux-trickster noticed with a shred of relief.

“Becky, uh… Can you slow down…?” Sam said, patting her hand.

Becky took a deep breath and smiled up at Sam dreamily. Gabriel felt something clench around his heart and shifted a little to try and loosen it. Not that that worked.

“Anything for you,” she agreed amiably. “It’s just that, well, seeing you two look at each other like that made me realize how cute of a ship the Trickster and Sam would be!”

Sam smiled a little, but it kept flickering back to a slightly-confused frown.

“Ship?”

“Pairing,” answered Becky with a flutter of her hands. “Couple. Whatever. Since Dean and Castiel are going to get popular, and there’s no way I’m going to ship Samifer, even if the smut fics would be absolutely delicious—”

Sam and Gabriel glanced at each other. Gabriel had an inkling he didn’t want to know what a smut fic was. The term Samifer also put him on edge for some reason he couldn’t place. Becky let out a huff of air, and put her hands on her hips.

And then Carry On, Wayward Son by Kansas started blasting from her back pocket.

Becky fumbled for her phone with a gasp.

“The costume contest! It’s on in five minutes!”

“Hey, we’re signed up for that,” said Sam thoughtfully.

He only barely got the words out of his mouth before Becky had grabbed them by the wrists and was dragging them through the hotel. Gabriel was actually a little shocked that Becky was able to make any headway through the crowd, since unlike he and Sam she couldn’t see over most of the con-goers. After almost body-slamming a Yellow-Eyed Demon and a Woman in White, Becky tugged them into a ballroom.

The line of contestants wasn’t very long, fourteen people, including them. The costumes were eclectic, to be sure. There were two sets of Sam and Dean cosplayers near the front, which Gabriel noticed made Sam rub his neck sheepishly. Behind those four was a Meg, with full-on black contacts. Very badass. Next, a Bela and Jo were standing casually. They shook hands. For some reason, Gabriel found himself pleased that so many side characters were making appearances in the contest.

“They look really good,” said Sam, leaning down to whisper in Gabriel’s ear.

A shudder raced up and down his spine, and he hunched his shoulders a little, biting his bottom lip.

“Yeah, they do. But so do we,” Gabriel replied, turning to grin up at Sam.

The brunette looked as if he were about to say something in return, but they were interrupted by a slew of German curses. The guy behind the Jo cosplayer was fumbling on the ground for a plastic hook. Ah, a Hook Man. Interesting. Once he’d snatched up the replica weapon, he turned to the group behind him and started scolding them. All three bared fake vampire fangs and flicked him off. The tattooed djinn standing directly in front of Gabriel rolled his eyes.

Then, the lights went out, all but a spotlight on the stage in front of them. People began to file into the ballroom, and take seats on the folding chairs provided. Gabriel gulped. And then he saw his brother slip in, managing somehow to get a seat front and center. The blond kicked one leg up on top of the other and leaned back, cradling his head with his interlaced hands. Gabriel wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse. He clutched his bag of candy to his chest.

“Hey. We’ll be fine,” Sam reassured him softly.

One by one, the cosplayers strutted onto the stage, to thunderous applause. Most of them had background music. Gabriel hadn’t even thought of that.

Thankfully, Becky was both undeniably clever and well-prepared.

The second Gabriel stepped onto the stage, Heat of the Moment started blaring over the speakers. He grinned, falling into character with the kind of ease he hadn’t been sure until that moment that he’d had. Hips and shoulders loose, he swaggered across the stage into the lineup, pulling out a candy bar and unwrapping it to munch on. He tossed the rest flippantly off the stage so they scattered in front of the audience.

The cheer was deafening. Gabriel saw his brother reach down and grab a piece of candy before giving him an appraising look with blue eyes. Gabriel’s grin spread wider.

Sam looked nervous as he climbed onto the stage to finish out the lineup, but it seemed to work in his favor, especially with the way he was still at least five inches taller than everyone else even with his shoulders slouched.

“Ok!” Becky announced. “Our judges are tallying the scores right now!”

The crowd roared. Gabriel blinked his amber eyes rapidly a few times, then glanced up at Sam. Somehow noticing the gaze, Sam looked back and offered a sheepish smile. Then a drumroll started up.

“Ok, the judges have decided! First up, the award for group costumes!”

The Sam and Dean pairs and the group of vampires straightened up. Everyone waited with bated breath. Gabriel wasn’t sure why his eyes were drawn down to his brother, who was looking only half-interested. The second he noticed the golden stare on him, though, he gestured to the vampire group with a nudge of his thumb.

“Eli’s group: the vampires!”

The Sam and Dean pairs groaned, disappointed, and the vampires sauntered up to take a bow. Then all three groups were escorted off the stage.

“And now,” Becky announced, “the winner for single costumes! This was a tough one. The judges debated long and hard about it… And the winner is Ally, as Jo!”

The Jo cosplayer shot a victory fist into the air.

Everyone looked ready to leave the stage, but Becky wasn’t quite done.

“However, the judges also felt that there was a distinct performative aspect that couldn’t go unrewarded, and so we have a runner-up: Gabriel, as the Trickster!”

Gabriel’s eyes widened. He just stood there, frozen, until Sam elbowed him gently in the arm. Then the faux Trickster pulled a grin and waved at the crowd. Ally, the Jo cosplayer, offered him a high five, which he accepted.

Everyone walked off the stage together, and Gabriel felt something electric buzzing under his skin.

“Nice job,” Sam congratulated. “You really did pull off the Trickster vibe there.”

Gabriel flushed.

“Thanks, Sammy.”

He wasn’t sure what made him do it, exactly. But without spending time thinking about it, Gabriel hopped up onto his toes and pressed a quick kiss to Sam’s lips. Sam blinked. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. There was a pause.

“Gabriel, I—”

And then an arm looped around Gabriel’s neck.

“How daring of you, little brother. Even when you have no idea who he is, you still gravitate towards him. I suppose that _does_ mean something…”

Gabriel was about to ask what the hell Luce was talking about. But then he blinked, and everything was different.

Well, physically it was all the same, though the world around them had frozen in place. But he was Gabriel, the archangel, not Gabriel the fanboy. And that changed lots of things.

“Luci, what the hell?” he demanded.

Lucifer released him and shrugged.

“It was my last shot. I had to pull out the big guns. But I didn’t expect that crazy Rosen woman to think you two would be good together,” he sighed. “That was my mistake. Humans like her are especially emotionally volatile.”

“Wait,” Gabriel said slowly. “This is the last test? I passed?”

Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest and let out a grumpy huff.

“Yes,” he admitted grudgingly.

A grin spread over Gabriel’s face.

“Sooooo… You approve?” he prodded.

“Don’t push it, little brother. I could always kill you again.”

“You don’t mean that,” Gabriel sing-songed.

The scene around them dissolved, leaving the brothers standing in the same secluded corner of Heaven Gabriel had been practicing in from the start. The youngest archangel rolled his shoulders, feeling his powers return with the same sort of uncomfortable prickly sensation as when a numbed limb was reawaken to sensation. It was totally worth it to have his mojo back though. He did a little dance, and Lucifer rolled his eyes.

“Well? Are you going to go ask him now, then?” the blond demanded, blue eyes narrowed.

Gabriel choked.

All the color drained from his face. He held up a single index finger and opened his mouth, but there was really no good explanation for why he wasn’t thoroughly prepared to ask out Sam Winchester yet, after being “put through his paces” by Satan himself.

Except that it was Sam freaking Winchester.

Gabriel let his hand fall back to his side.

Lucifer looked thoroughly unimpressed.

“J-just a few more practice runs,” muttered Gabriel, more to himself than his brother.

Lucifer rolled his eyes and vanished in a flap of wings. Gabriel let his expression fall into a frown.

He took a deep breath, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he snapped his fingers.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, if you want to read the story in chronological order, please branch off to the Paralogue story (in this same series) now: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2588822
> 
> If you want instant gratification in terms of plot-relevant chapters, please continue to Chapter 14.


	14. Stand and Watch It Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a lot of trial and error, Gabriel finds himself somewhere he should not be.  
> Endverse AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, for the most part it seems like people just want to get to the end (not that I can blame you, I think the goofy middle AUs will be a lot more fun after I break your hearts and give you a little catharsis), so I present what will be chapter 98 on the FF.Net version of this story.
> 
> I hope the transition into the chapter isn't too rocky, but I am, after all, trying to summarize something like 80 chapters that I haven't even written yet.

Gabriel continued on with his practicing in much the same manner. His brothers eventually gave up on interrupting him. In fact, he flicked through so many realities, so many scenarios, that at some point he lost sight of what it was he had been doing to begin with. Every time he thought of turning back, even to the very first, the most realistic of his practice attempts, his stomach churned and he flung himself farther and farther away from worlds that made sense. And it worked, for a while. Certainly things became more ridiculous, goofy. That was where Gabriel thrived, in the absurd.

Until all of that took a sharp downward dive.

It had been happy, light, domestic, even hopeful. What if Sam worked in a bookstore? What if they met while walking dogs? Every cheesy romance novel plot he could think of. Dr. Sexy MD just for the fun of it, just to laugh to himself about Dean’s obsession with the show. Crayola-colored fantasies where all the troubles of the world were far away, where life was mundane and easy and Sam’s eyes didn’t look haunted by all the people he had left behind. And then suddenly it wasn’t. Because his eyes _were_ haunted, and Gabriel knew it, and it wasn’t fair to Sam to try and drown out all that suffering for the sake of his own nervousness. It wasn’t.

And it was upon that realization that the practices turned into something else. Something threaded by guilt, a painful penance for all the times he had hidden, all the times he hadn’t been there, because how could Sam Winchester ever love someone who had the power to ease his suffering, his brother’s suffering, and had stood by?

How could a man with a soul so bright it had withstood the pointed, petty anger of his brothers, who had overpowered them and submitted to the idea of being tortured for all eternity, who had thrown himself into the deepest, darkest, most foul, pitch-stained cage in Hell with only the words “It’s alright, Dean”, how could someone like that ever love him?

It wasn’t the pagans who had ruined Gabriel. And it wasn’t the humans either. Gabriel had ruined himself. And everything around him. He had broken things apart and put them back together wrong, simply because he could. And he was being a coward, once again, only thinking of himself and his own happiness. He had toyed with humans as if they meant nothing to him.

He was an archangel. One of God’s firstborn. And he had failed humanity, time and time again.

Had failed Sam Winchester time and time again.

The real question was, why was Gabriel practicing at all?

What did he have to practice for?

Except to be able to say, I was there, I was there, I was there.

And he couldn’t. Because no matter how much he threw himself into every problem Sam had faced alone, and there were many, he hadn’t been there when it mattered. Hadn’t even known to be there.

How could Sam Winchester ever look at him and see anything but a coward?

That was how Gabriel found himself staring down Sam Winchester in a pristine white suit, Lucifer peering out at him from those hazel eyes. He looked sad, resigned; his expression was soft.

“Hello, Gabriel. You’ve come a long way.”

The youngest archangel nodded.

“It’s been a while, Luce.”

“You’re upset,” the Devil realized.

Something sharp and hot pricked the back of Gabriel’s eyes.

“Let him go.”

“You didn’t come here for that,” Lucifer said, tilting his head to the side. “Let me ask you something, little brother. Why _did_ you come here?”

Gabriel frowned and swallowed around the rock of a lump swelling in his throat.

“What?”

“Why are you here?” Lucifer repeated, gesturing loosely with Sam’s arms. “What do you have to gain by visiting me? You’re only punishing yourself.”

“No, I—”

“You’re afraid. I can see it in your eyes, Gabriel. You can’t stop me, and even if you could, what would it prove? Nothing. This reality isn’t yours. So… I win.”

Gabriel’s eyes flashed gold just as lightning split the sky around them. Lucifer didn’t look troubled, simply brushed one of Sam’s thumbs tenderly against a rose blossom.

“Shut up.”

The Devil’s head perked up at that, and he stared at his brother in mild surprise.

“Is that what you’re here for?” he asked, softly, taking a measured step forward on Sam’s long legs. “A fight?”

He smiled and it flickered a few times. Gabriel wasn’t sure whether his brother appeared to be about to laugh or about to snarl. Neither option seemed preferable to the other. Gabriel’s square fingers dug into the meat of his palm as his hands balled into fists. The archangel jutted his jaw out.

Lucifer blinked Sam’s eyes closed, and when they opened they were blazing an icy blue. With a rush of frost, the garden they were standing in died. And then, sprouting from Sam’s back, were two blinding arcs that let off enough chill to harden the ground beneath Gabriel’s feet. No human could perceive them, not without dying instantly. But to Gabriel, they were familiar. Intimate.

Lucifer’s wings.

The last time he had seen them, really seen them, was millennia before when Michael and Lucifer were first beginning their arguments. Often Lucifer kept his wings tucked away because they were too bright even for some of the angels, and had caused more than a few to faint or lose sight temporarily. God had not pulled any punches with his second son’s wings.

And they were coated in a layer of frost that chilled the air around their host. Humans thought, oftentimes, that Lucifer ran hot, like Hell. But Lucifer was cold. It was Michael whose touch burned.

Each individual feather in Lucifer’s wings was carved of something that glittered, refracted. Like diamond, but brighter. When Lucifer rustled his wings, as he had done often at Gabriel’s request when he was young, rainbows skittered away from his feet in large glowing circles. He had never seen them after Lucifer’s fall. Some of the feathers were melted, melded together like overheated glass. Twisted, misshapen. But the rainbows were still there.

It was a challenge. Lucifer was baiting him.

But with those familiar wings protruding behind Sam, Gabriel felt a fist clench over his lungs and rake claws down his throat. Sam. Lucifer.

Sam.

“It’s going to be alright, Sam,” Gabriel said softly.

“Sam has been gone a long time, Gabriel,” Lucifer cautioned, twisting Sam’s features into a familiar concerned look, one normally turned on Dean. “I’ve had five years to square him away. He can’t hear us anymore.”

“It’s ok, It’s gonna be ok, Sam,” Gabriel insisted, closing his eyes.

With a rush of warm air, he felt his wings unfurl. Soft and gold and shining like the sun. And then he threw out his arm.

Lucifer went flying.

They fought like that for a while. Neither one really meaning it. A toss here, or there. It was hard to see his brother behind Sam’s face when his eyes were closed, when they weren’t lit with angelic grace. And then, when he had Lucifer momentarily pinned, his brother smiled.

“I know why you’re doing this,” he said, in Sam’s voice, in Sam’s tones. “And you’re only going to get hurt.”

Gabriel laughed in his brother’s face, even if it was gasping and rough and painful. Even if Lucifer could see right through it. Lucifer gazed up at him and offered a sad smile, an expression contorted by pity.

“No matter what you do, Gabriel, no matter how you try and prove yourself, you will never be loved. You’ll run away, again. Because you know no one will take you, least of all Sam. You will always be alone.”

The worst part was how sincere the words were. They were like a scimitar, curving under Gabriel’s ribs and digging high into his chest. A twist-flash of an archangel blade to the abdomen. Not angry, but violent all the same. Heat prickled at Gabriel’s scalp as his chest went cold.

“No.”

“Family is all you had, brother. And you threw it away.”

“No!” Gabriel tossed Lucifer away from him with a flick of his wrist, chest heaving, eyes blazing. “ _You_ threw _me_ away! You were fighting, all the time, I didn’t, I couldn’t—”

“Even if you died, Sam wouldn’t miss you. He thinks you’re dead now and doesn’t miss you. But I missed you, Gabriel. I mourned you. Because we’re family. Because you’re my little brother.”

There was a sheen over Lucifer’s gaze, a softness. Lightning cracked through the air, setting everything ablaze for a brief second before darkness overtook the ruined garden again.

And for a moment, Gabriel couldn’t see Sam at all.

Just his brother, his older brother, who was supposed to protect him, who had seen only the potential for evil in their Father’s most beautiful creation, who had the gall to wear a face like Sam’s with so much hate burning in his heart, with rage bubbling under his skin like tar.

And Gabriel threw himself forward and attacked.

The garden flashed white, but it wasn’t the lightning.

Everything burned.

“Gabriel! Stop!”

Someone grabbed him from behind. The archangel couldn’t see, even in front of himself, but the voice was familiar.

Castiel held him tightly, arms wrapped in vain around a being he could never hope to contain. Gabriel’s chest heaved, and his little brother only barely held on. Somewhere in the furthest corner of Gabriel’s mind, he wondered what the amount of raw grace he was expelling would do to a seraph like Castiel. Someone was screaming, but Gabriel’s ears were ringing so loudly that he couldn’t tell if it was Castiel or himself.

And then Michael was before them.

He placed a palm on Gabriel’s forehead, which was clammy and beaded with sweat. The scene dissolved with a flash. Everything went silent. Gabriel sank to his knees, and Castiel followed him down, the younger angel’s bear hug softening to a light hold that proved he was there and nothing more. Michael’s blue eyes were blazing.

“I overlooked this because you promised it was helping. That your practice was important to you, and would eventually cease. But you have driven yourself into the ground, all over a single human. It _must stop_.”

Gabriel felt his heart sinking through his chest like a stone, where it landed with a thud in his stomach.

“Don’t tell Luce—”

“I have to,” Michael refuted sternly. “You can’t hide this from him.”

A sob bubbled up Gabriel’s throat, but got stuck somewhere along the way.

“I know…”

But then, instead of vanishing, Michael knelt down. A furrow was still tightly wedged between his brows, and a frown still marred his lips, but he folded Gabriel into his arms. Castiel pulled away and stood. He gave Michael some explanation of where he was going, but Gabriel’s attention was riveted to the way it felt to be hugged by Michael.

Safe. And warm.

He rested his forehead on Michael’s shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I know.”

Michael’s tone was one of finality. They would not speak of that moment again.

He pulled Gabriel to his feet. There was a soft flap of wings, and both brothers turned to find Lucifer watching them with a cold stare. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his head was tilted to the right. But his expression was one of cold rage, not curiosity.

Michael nodded solemnly.

Then, he was gone.

“Hey, Luci,” Gabriel greeted softly.

“Castiel told me what happened.”

“Ah.”

Gabriel ran his tongue over his upper row of teeth and sucked in a deep breath.

No one’s supposed to go into that dead reality anymore,” said Lucifer. “Not even me. You messed up big time, little brother.”

Gabriel nodded.

He hadn’t been thinking, but that wasn’t an excuse, certainly not one that that would fly. The Endverse, as Gabriel had so lovingly named it, was a no-fly zone. A pocket universe that Zachariah had created specifically to get Dean to say yes to Michael. And half the reason that the balding butt-kisser was not particularly missed.

It was no secret that Gabriel had never been fond of Zachariah, though, so perhaps he was biased.

The point was that the Endverse was particularly distasteful to Lucifer, specifically, for a great many reasons. The could-have-beens, among them, yes, but also the temptation that world offered to drag him back into the fight with Michael that he had never really wanted anyway. That none of them had ever wanted.

And Gabriel had waltzed in on like it was his personal villa and picked a fight.

“Luce, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t sweeten my tea, little brother.”

On any other day, Gabriel would have laughed. But it was a challenge. Or an attempt by Lucifer to stay calm. He was too frazzled to figure out which.

“I know.”

It felt like the hundredth time he had said it.

Lucifer uncrossed his arms and took two long steps so that Gabriel had to crane his neck to meet his brother’s eyes. Then he was being yanked up by the front of his shirt.

“I said I wouldn’t interfere,” Lucifer said softly. “So I won’t. I don’t lie, Gabriel, you know that. But if you go near Sam in this state, you’ll force my hand. And not even Michael will be able to stop me then.”

Then he was gone, and Gabriel dropped back onto his feet with a jarring thud.

The archangel rubbed his jaw even though no one had punched him there. He took two deep breaths, and realized Lucifer was right. He couldn’t go near Sam after a train wreck like that. But he also wasn’t sure how to dig his way out of his dangerous mindset either.

He laughed, softly.

“What would Sammy-boy do? I wonder?”

And then Gabriel’s thoughts turned to what Sam deserved again. Thought about a happy domestic life away from monsters and Apocalypses and douche angels, where everyone could see how special Sam was and appreciated him. Where Sam was happy, with his family around him, probably with a big fluffy dog, and married—

Married.

To Jessica Moore, probably.

And Jessica Moore had a little space carved out for herself in heaven.

Gabriel looked up, rolled his shoulders, took a breath. Well. He could at least go see what kind of heaven she had about her, anyway. Maybe it would be something soothing.

Maybe he could learn a thing or two from her.

Gabriel closed his eyes. He wasn’t feeling much like an angel, so he tucked in his wings.

Then, he snapped his fingers.


	15. Jess in the Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel has a long chat with Jessica Moore, and she sets him straight on a few things.  
> Jess Lives AU (briefly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't know if you all know this, but Dean and Jess share a birthday. That's what the restaurant scene is all about.
> 
> This chapter was a beast to write, since Jess dies in the pilot episode and all... Hopefully I've represented her fairly!

The corner of Heaven that Gabriel found Jessica Moore settled in was set up in a cozy little bar, decorated with glowing strings of lights shaped like pumpkins, and strands of clumpy fake cobweb that looked purple in the low light. It was just one in a number of memories that made up her little piece of Heaven, but Gabriel was glad he had caught her in one with Sam.

The Jess within the memory was dressed as a nurse, and Gabriel couldn’t quite hold back a less-than-appropriate grin. Next to her at a round table was a young, fluffy-haired Sam Winchester. Jess’s soul watched from a few feet away, leaned against the bar.

Turning reluctantly from Sam, who was positively glowing as he chatted with his girlfriend, Gabriel studied the real Jess.

He hadn’t thought she’d notice him. He was just clearing away drinks in the corner, had taken on the form of some college part-timer working at the bar. But when he chanced a glance at her, she was looking back at him and her eyes burned. Sam wasn’t the only one who could see right through him.

She cast a lingering glance at herself and Sam, sitting at the table. Just as mesmerized by his smile as Gabriel was. And then she walked up to him and his disguise slipped through his fingers like slick glass.

“Who are you?” she asked quietly, though there was no risk of distracting the people around them.

He tried to grin, but found it difficult to shape his mouth the way he wanted.

“You’re… Jess, right?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, cocked her head to the side, and stared.

“Yes, I am. But _who_ are _you_?”

“I’m an angel,” he admitted helplessly.

She tilted her head to the side and put a hand on her hip. The blonde looked about to ask a question, but when Gabriel’s eyes darted back to the table with Sam, she followed his gaze. The brunette was kissing the Jess of the memory tenderly. Gabriel could almost feel the sad, puppy-dog longing weakening his gaze.

Jess noticed it too.

“Hey,” she said sharply, standing directly in Gabriel’s line of sight. “What are you doing here?”

Gabriel put a hand to his forehead.

“I… Sorry. I came to see you,” he said once he’d collected himself. “My name’s Gabriel.”

He offered a hand, and Jess shook it. But she didn’t move her gaze from his face, which left him with a hot, prickling sensation on his scalp.

“Well, Gabriel, I think maybe we should take this somewhere else.”

The two of them shot a glance back at Sam and memory-Jess, kissing obliviously. Gabriel let a nervous chuckle slip past his parted lips.

“As you wish,” he told her.

With a snap of his fingers, the scene changed. The two of them were sitting, side-by-side on swings at a deserted park.

“I know this place,” said Jess.

She pushed herself back and forth on the swing with her feet, and bent her head a little. Gabriel waited. He had nowhere to be. Nothing to do. After all, he’d fucked up royally. A Winchester-level mistake, if anything was. And somehow, sitting in a quiet park with Sam’s dead almost-fiancée was kind of…

Comforting?

“My dad used to bring me to this park when I was little,” the blonde explained at last. “And then we’d go get ice cream at the store on the corner.”

Gabriel nodded absently.

“It’s nice.”

They sat in silence for a while, listening to wind sashaying its way through the bright green leaves of the trees in the park.

“I saw you looking at him,” Jess accused. “You want to talk about Sam.”

“You caught me.”

Gabriel grinned because, given the circumstances, there was nothing else to do. Jess’s lips pulled into a slight, puzzled frown. With a kick of her feet, she stood from the swing and stared down at Gabriel with her hands on her hips.

“Well then?”

“He’s pretty smokin’, huh,” said Gabriel.

Jess’s eyes narrowed and she flicked a tendril of wavy blonde hair behind her ear.

“You and I both know that’s not why you’re here. What, you’re not scared of me, are you?”

Looking up at her, Gabriel couldn’t quite hold onto his smile. He fiddled with the swing chain in his right hand and rested the top of his head against it.

“No,” the archangel replied mulishly. “I just…”

“Can’t,” finished Jess, grabbing the chains of Gabriel’s swing and leaning down to look into his eyes, “get him out of your head. Right?”

He frowned up at her, perplexed.

“How did you—?”

“Because I used to make that look in the mirror, Gabe.”

He shifted, startled, and couldn’t explain why his chest went warm at the nickname. Jess smiled down at him, and shook her head.

“How’s he doing, by the way…?” she asked, standing straight again and gesturing at the park around them. “I don’t exactly get the newsletter around here.”

“It’s been… Rough,” Gabriel admitted.

And even though the secrets weren’t his to share, he told her everything. Why she had been killed, all the pain and the death and the lies. The angels and the demons alike. And Sam, in the thick of it all, always unable to escape.

Jess listened to the whole story patiently, moving about the park. Picking up a leaf here or there, running her hands over the green metal bench facing the playground equipment. Her expression was flat and calm.

“That’s a lot to deal with,” she began, when Gabriel had exhausted the story and fallen into a pensive silence. “I guess I understand why he never wanted to talk about his family.”

“Yeah…”

The weight of what he’d just shared, rather than being lifted, crushed down on Gabriel’s chest all the harder. He struggled to his feet and walked away from the swing set.

“Jess?”

“Hm?”

“Can I… I’m going to do something, alright? And you can tell me to stop whenever. I just… I’d like to see-… Well.”

Without his usual flair, Gabriel snapped his fingers.

Jessica’s heaven shifted around them, reforming into a high-end restaurant. Around the circular table, which was covered in a silky tablecloth somewhere between cream and ivory, sat Sam, Dean, and Jess. Sam had an arm around each of the other two, pulling them closer with a grin and the kind of infectious laugh that Gabriel had a hard time remembering when, if ever, he had last heard.

“Happy birthday, guys,” the brunette was saying.

Jess, the real Jess, turned to Gabriel with narrowed eyes and a stern frown.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Gabriel shrugged.

“I just… I wanted to see—”

“That’s _no excuse_.”

But as she said it, she turned back to the scene before them, drinking it up with her eyes. Neither of them could look away. Not with Sam’s eyes squinted to near-closed in joy. Not with his laughter ringing in the air. The light coming off him was like the sun, and they had both turned towards it instinctively.

It took a full five minutes, during which time Sam had sung a slightly off-key rendition of the Happy Birthday song for each of the other two sitting at the table with him, before Gabriel was able to wave away the vision. The second he did, the spell was broken, and Jess was staring hard at him again.

“Sorry.”

The blonde squeezed her eyes shut, and eased her hands out of fists.

“No, I… I get it. Really. I do,” she told him, in a much more forgiving tone than he was expecting. “But from what you’ve told me, you should know better than anyone that we can’t live in a fantasy world.”

Gabriel tugged a hand through his hair, nodding. His lips were twisted into a sour smile. She was right, of course. And he had known that all along. It was just, he’d wanted to hold out hope that maybe if he tried enough, practiced enough, things would work out.

But seeing that lost future, how happy Sam could have been with Jess, he realized maybe what he was doing had been wrong from the get-go.

“Hey,” Jess said suddenly, taking hold of Gabriel’s jacket. “You do know that could never happen, right? I mean it. Sam’s whole life’s been planned out by forces so much bigger than him, or me, maybe even bigger than you. No one could’ve stopped all of it.”

“If you were alive though—”

“I would have died a different way. I was just some casualty to all this… All this crap being thrown at him,” the blonde insisted.

“You’re more than that,” said Gabriel.

Jess sighed, releasing the archangel and sitting on the green bench that overlooked the rest of the park.

“As a person. Yeah, of course I am,” she answered, mouth downturned in a skeptical ‘duh, of course’ frown. “But that isn’t what I mean, Gabe. I mean they picked me out for the express purpose of killing me. That wasn’t gonna change.”

Gabriel sat down next to her and looked down at the palms of his hands. Suddenly, they seemed very small.

“I think I love him,” he admitted, and it was half a lie because honestly he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did.

“I think you do too. So why are you sitting here like an ass?”

Gabriel blinked.

Then he looked up at Jess as if she had just proposed that the Earth orbited the moon.

“What?”

“I’ve moved on, Gabe. Accepted my death. I’m sure he has too. It’s been over _ten years_. Yeah, I still love Sam, I still care about him,” she said, tugging at her sleeve and shaking her head. “I want him to be happy. But I’m more than him, and he’s more than me. I’m not gonna tell you to back off, that’s stupid. I don’t have any claim to him, and after all the stuff he’s had to deal with, he deserves to be loved by anyone and everyone who can love him.”

Gabriel tilted his head a little to the right, just to look at her. To get a new angle. And he understood then why Sam had wanted to propose to someone like Jessica Moore. She was warm. And honest. Her voice was a little rough, a little no-nonsense. She didn’t take crap from people.

“I’m sure Sambo still thinks about you plenty. I would.”

Jess laughed and shoved Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Cute.”

“I mean it though,” the archangel said earnestly, taking the blonde’s hands in his. “He’s… Well, he’s something amazing. But so are you. I—”

But just what Gabriel was, he never had the chance to say. The flap of wings echoed in the still air, and the archangel leapt back away from Jess and onto his feet, startled. With three steps, Castiel stood in front of his elder brother.

“Gabriel. What are you doing?” he demanded sternly.

The archangel rolled his eyes. Michael was easy enough to hear in Castiel’s tone. It wasn’t hard to see who had sent him.

“Calm your flight feathers, Captain Side-eye,” Gabriel scoffed, tossing his head a little. “I’m just making a new friend, is that so wrong?”

Castiel’s too-blue, no-nonsense stare seemed to suggest that yes, he did think there was something wrong about the situation. Eyes dancing with fake mirth, Gabriel met the seraph’s gaze and offered him an insincere smile.

“Jessica Moore was Sam’s girlfriend,” explained Castiel.

“Yeah, and?”

“And it is highly unlikely your seeking her out is a coincidence, Gabriel.”

Suddenly, there was a hand on Castiel’s shoulder.

“We’re fine here,” said Jess firmly, steering the dark-haired angel away. “Working through some stuff. Don’t need an audience.”

Castiel seemed about to protest, but Jess kept two hands firmly on his shoulder blades and shoved him until he threw one last wary look at them and vanished. Gabriel’s mouth pulled into an impressed frown. When Jess turned back to him, triumphantly, hands on her hips.

“Wow. You just bossed around an angel,” he noted, letting out a low whistle.

“What, like it’s hard?” she teased. “You’re apparently just a bunch of awkward magical marshmallows.”

Gabriel raised his right index finger and opened his mouth, but found he had absolutely no witty retort to that.

“I… Have never heard us described like that,” he told her at last. “Kudos on your originality.”

Jess grinned. Then she grabbed Gabriel firmly by the wrist and dragged him back to the park bench. He was still too busy processing the combination of magical and marshmallow being used for something other than Lucky Charms, and just let her do as she pleased. Otherwise, being a mostly-all-powerful archangel and all, Gabriel would have insisted that he could walk without being tugged around. Honest.

“Back to business,” Jessica demanded firmly, snapping Gabriel out of his thoughts. “Why are you here with me instead of wherever Sam is?”

He looked at her and swore to himself he was not going to tell her that he had spent most of a week trying and failing and occasionally succeeding at confessing to Sam in various parallel realities. And then her gaze was so cutting and intuitive that he felt he had to. Gabriel had never had such bad word vomit in his life. He wondered if it was just him, or if Jess had this effect on everyone.

“You’ve gotta stop hurting yourself like that, Gabe,” she said when he finished. “It’s painful just to listen to. You can bend reality but you’re too scared to ask out Sam Winchester?” she threw out an arm in a disbelieving gesture “Even I could do that!”

Gabriel laughed, just a short little ‘ha’. Then he looked away again.

“What if…”

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“You can always hide here with me and stare at him all day,” she offered, placing a hand on his shoulder, and he marveled at the innate strength of her, a human consoling an archangel. “See his smile. Not have to worry. But I think he deserves more than that. Sam should be happy, Gabriel. Happy out there, where it counts. And I think you owe it to him to try to make him happy. Til he’s in Heaven for good. Then, well… We’ll have to worry about sharing him with Dean, I guess.”

Her laugh was bright and sweet. Gabriel thought of all the people in Heaven who would want to see Sam. Thought of all the other people who loved him. Everyone who could understand, just the slightest bit, what Gabriel was feeling. Thought about how many people could appreciate how special Sam Winchester really was. And he felt, for the first time in what seemed like decades, at peace. A strange, comforting warmth, like the touch of his Father, spread up his arms and through his chest until he was sure he must be glowing.

“Alright,” he agreed. “But… I think I need one more practice first.”

“Just one,” Jess insisted, tilting her head forward to intensify her stare.

“Yeah. Just one. Promise, kiddo.”

The blonde smiled at him fondly, like he was hopeless, and maybe she was right.

 “And promise me you’ll come tell me how the real one goes,” Jess ordered.

Gabriel winked and nodded; then, he snapped his fingers.


	16. Little Piece of Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel puts himself in a safe space for his final practice before going to speak to Sam.  
> Meeting in Heaven AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, the next one after this is the final chapter! Then I'll keep working on the middle 80 or so chapters and add a note for where it diverges.

“Where am I?”

That was the first thing Gabriel heard, as the world around him began to fill in with color and light. Detail. But he didn’t need to see anything, no. He wouldn't have had to see anything even if he hadn't had a clear idea in mind after leaving Jess. The grace-infused particles spiking the air and tinging everything with tranquility, healing, power… That would have told him enough. A simple answer.

“Heaven,” the archangel explained nonchalantly, resting his shoulder against a tree that had only just started to take shape.

Sam shook his head, short fluffy hair flying in all directions; then he blinked, furrowed his brow. Checked his chest for a knife wound that was no longer there.

“Heaven? _I’m_ in heaven?”

The disbelief in Sam’s voice cut a path right to Gabriel’s heart. A cold twist of metal in his chest. The unbridled rage of an archangel, crackling with the elements, flashed across his face for the barest of instants, and sent the grace particles in the air into overdrive. An earthquake-like sensation shook the area, sending objects still filling themselves in with substance into a crooked slant. Sam tensed up and reached for a gun that he didn’t have. Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut and took three deep breaths.

“Of course you’re in heaven, Sambo,” he explained, swaggering over to the hunter to release the pent up energy still stored in his shoulders. “You died, right? Well, here you are.”

“And who are you?” Sam asked. “How do you know my name?”

A fond smile spread across Gabriel’s features. He bowed theatrically.

“Gabriel. The archangel. At your service. I’m here to show you around.”

Sam glanced around as if he thought it might be a joke. As if the world would really punk him or something. Please. The God Squad didn’t have enough humanity for a sense of humor. Gabriel rocked back and forth on his feet until Sam seemed to be satisfied.

“Don’t you… I mean. Why would an _archangel_ be showing me around heaven?” Sam wondered aloud.

“Oh, Sammy-boy. I’ve been watching you,” Gabriel explained with a wag of his finger. “That’s all. I like you. So I thought… Why not?”

Sam nodded, and it looked stiff and uncomfortable, and then he turned his hazel gaze on the landscape around him. It was nature, pure and simple, a clearing in the trees under a sky banded in the brightest of stars. Sam placed his palm flat against a tree trunk, picked up a leaf and rubbed it between his fingers.

“I know this place,” he said at last.

“Do tell,” Gabriel pressed, placing his hands behind his back. “Where have you seen it before?”

Sam laughed, a noise that was short and breathy in the crisp night air.

“I was on,” he started, then furrowed his brow. “I was on my way to Stanford. Alone. And then I looked up at the sky and I thought, I need to enjoy this. I’d forgotten.”

And all at once, both men noticed fireflies blinking on and off, a graceful, tuneless rhythm that the stars simply didn’t have. Cicadas buzzed out a matching beat. Something like the sound of silence, but brighter and louder. Sam lay back in the grass. A waft of sweetness drifted past him, over-ripe apples and turning leaves. Gabriel’s grace reacted to the overwhelming peace with a surge. A rush of joy like a mountain stream.

Without even realizing it, he was sitting on the ground next to Sam.

“Sounds nice,” said Gabriel, because he had nothing else to say.

They were quiet, and Sam reached out with a long arm to trace the stars’ patterns, as if he could rearrange them himself.

“It was,” the hunter agreed. “There were so many people I could have been, so many things I could have done. I could have married Jess. I could have lived a normal life. Hell, I could have turned around right then and gone back. Apologized to Dad. I’m not really even sure who I ended up being. But that night, I didn’t know about any of that. I just thought, these stars are beautiful.”

Something hard and tight pressed against the back of Gabriel’s throat. Pinpricks burned at the back of his eyes.

“My brother put those stars up there,” he managed at last.

Sam smiled over at Gabriel lazily, and the lump began to dissipate a bit.

“He did a good job.”

“I… I know.”

It had been a long time since he had talked about Lucifer before his fall with anyone, and especially with pride in his voice. The archangels were beings of light and sound, wavelengths really, and they knew each other well enough after so many eons that they didn’t generally talk about their feelings. Not in the way humans did. Once Michael and Lucifer had been freed from the Cage, their truce had taken only a glance; Gabriel’s acceptance of them as his brothers again, only a nod. But it felt right to speak, when it was with Sam. Even if he wondered how destructive the urge really was, to throw up his life story, to toss the weight of millennia on a young man who had already seen more in twenty-some years than most humans ever saw.

“What was he like?” Sam asked idly.

“Awful,” Gabriel told him with a hazy grin. “Sulky and always thought he was right. But I loved him. He… He left home too. Like you did. Then again, so did I.”

“Left home? You mean heaven?” Sam asked, sitting up a bit and leaning on his elbow to look Gabriel in the eyes. “Why leave heaven, isn’t it supposed to be perfect?”

“Supposed to be being the operative term there, gigantor,” corrected Gabriel. “Dad and Luce got into a fight, a big one. I left ‘cuz I couldn’t stand it.”

Sam’s eyes dimmed a bit, and his mouth dropped into a thoughtful frown.

“Makes sense.”

Gabriel wanted to kick himself, but didn’t.

“It… It wasn’t all bad though. Really,” he insisted. “My brothers are idiots, but they tried, I think.”

“Did you ever want to be someone different?” Sam asked suddenly.

Gabriel’s self-satisfied smirk told the whole story.

“I _was_ someone different.”

Sam just raised his eyebrows a bit, waiting for Gabriel to continue. The archangel let him suffer the suspense for a few seconds before letting the cat out of the bag, though. More fun that way.

“I was a pagan god for a while,” Gabriel bragged. “Loki.”

“Loki. The trickster?” Sam demanded. “Isn’t that a little…”

“Luci didn’t like it when he found out. And Michael wouldn’t have either, if he ever knew. Hardass.”

As they talked, Sam’s gaze softened a bit. He looked back up at the stars again, only turning his face to Gabriel to check and see if the other was joking as he regaled him with Loki’s exploits. Fighting giants, finding a place in the Nordic pantheon thanks to Odin, almost killing Baldur, tricking arrogant nobles and, later, businessmen.

“Did you like being Loki better?” Sam wondered, shifting and pulling a stick out from under his hip.

“It was easier,” Gabriel admitted. “But I’m not sure. It was like…”

Sam waited patiently while the archangel stood and paced and fished around for the words. Neither the trees nor the grass provided proper basis for the right metaphor, and eventually Gabriel flopped back onto the ground. Then, looking up at the stars again, everything seemed to click into place. Numbly, Gabriel laced his right hand through Sam’s left, raising them up towards the sky as far as he could reach. He didn’t even marvel at the fact that Sam’s arm was still mostly bent at the elbow.

“It was like you could feel the earth spinning,” he explained, tracing swirls in the stars with their interlocked fingers. “Like everything was moving too fast and I could just barely hold on. Fun, but… But terrifying. And there was a time I thought I’d lost Gabriel altogether. But, someone… Someone found me out. And thanks to that, I was back in the game. I stood up to my brothers. Instead of just going along for the ride, I… I tried. It’s still hard to do.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Sam breathed, and squeezed his hand.

With that meager sign of affection, just the smallest showing of camaraderie, Gabriel felt something explode through his veins to his heart. Like a shot of liquid fire. Gabriel knew that was what guilt felt like. The taste of ash and ice on his tongue, the burn of sugar in his throat.

He knew all the things Sam had been through, the real Sam, outside his own conjured imaginings. The Sam who had been in the Cage, who had seen the worst of the way angels could be. A perk of being an archangel, or a curse maybe. It made him want to shout I was there, I was there, I was there from the top of the trees, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t there. He was never there. Even after all his practicing and dimension-hopping, he had never been there, not really. All he could do was feel the memories, like a punch to the gut. And Sam had never known, would never know, because Gabriel would be too ashamed to tell him.

“If I had been there,” he promised, “I would have protected you.”

“Protected me?”

Gabriel felt his eyes blaze gold, even as he turned them on Sam’s questioning face. And any other time, under any other stars, he would have been mortified. But something about this Sam’s heaven felt raw and true and locked in place. The only part of the world that wasn’t trying to shake him off.

So while it would be easy to trickster up, to throw the entire moment away with a wink and a smile, to snap his fingers and start again from scratch, Gabriel stayed put. There was something about the heaven before him that convicted him, compelled him. It was a safe space within a safe space, somewhere no one else would ever see.

“You’re like air, Sam. Like air in the mountains, where it’s really thin and hard to breathe but you know you need it. And I want to say I’m afraid if I let you in you’ll wreck me, but you’re always afraid of wrecking people. And you’re always getting hurt because of it. You’re not guilty for who or what you are, and the truth is I…”

The way that Sam looked at him was physically painful. Empty, confused. But he didn’t let go of Gabriel’s hand, and the warmth of Sam’s large palm was what kept him from stopping.

“What I’m afraid of,” Gabriel confessed, “is that I’ll wreck us both. I couldn’t bear that. I’m so used to running away.”

Gabriel closed his eyes and waited. But Sam still didn’t pull his hand away. In fact, with a shift and the crunching of dead leaves, Gabriel found the brunette’s forehead pressed to his. When he lifted his lashes to make sure it was all real, Sam flashed him a sad smile. They stayed there, under the stars, for longer than seemed possible. Even the sounds of the woods fell away, because the realism of the memory was no longer needed. All the focus, all the grace permeating Sam’s heaven, was pressed between their joined hands.

“You’re a big, bad archangel,” Sam noted finally, with a bit of a lilt to his voice. “What are you so afraid of?”

Gabriel managed a grin.

“Just you.”

“To be fair, I am pretty scary,” agreed Sam.

“And tall.”

“Yeah, and tall.”

Gabriel gave himself three long seconds to study Sam’s eyes in the light of the autumn stars that Lucifer had placed in the sky so long ago. One. They shone in the pale light like nothing else. Two. Even with very little in the way of illumination, he could still pick out the colored flecks in Sam’s irises. Three. Sam held his gaze without hesitation.

“I’m going to try,” said Gabriel.

Sam nodded.

The archangel raised his free hand and snapped his fingers.


	17. Procrastination is Just a Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel finally angels up and goes to ask Sam on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Here it is, folks. The finale. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you'll stay around for all the goofy AUs I have planned for the paralogue story!

Though he’d immediately appeared outside Sam and Dean’s bunker, it took Gabriel several minutes to work up the courage to knock. Since Lucifer hadn’t appeared to kick his ass, Gabriel assumed that he was probably in the clear to be speaking to Sam, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still gonna be nervous as all-get-out. The night air buzzed with insects, and a cool wind patted his face. Gabriel took a sharp breath of the almost-biting air. He’d have no facades, no tricks to help him. Nowhere to hide. The door creaked open, and suddenly there was Sam Winchester, towering in the doorway with a bottle of beer in his hand and backlit like a god. Gabriel felt his mouth go dry.

Sam just took a pull of his drink calmly, as if an archangel who had supposedly been dead for like five years hadn’t just shown up at his door out of the blue.

“Hey, Gabriel.”

Gabriel’s face twitched into four or more conflicted expressions before settling on suspicious confusion.

“Why are… How did you…”

Sam’s mouth spread into a delicious smirk over the lip of his beer bottle, and his eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

“What, should I be surprised? Cas told us you were back like a week ago.”

Gabriel pressed his lips together hard. That meddling little—

“Look,” Sam interrupted, gesturing vaguely at the darkness outside the bunker with his bottle. “Not that I’m not enjoying standing with the door open at 8pm in October, but it’s cold. Are you coming in or what?”

It felt like miles of distance up to Sam’s glittering hazel eyes. Shuffling his feet, Gabriel entered the bunker. Sam let the door fall closed with a slam behind him, just to see the jittery archangel jump.

“S-so, uh… What’s up, Sambo…?”

“Not much,” said Sam, indulging him. “Nothing catastrophic or apocalyptic lately. Just back to the usual; saving people, hunting things.”

Gabriel nodded slowly.

“That’s good.”

And then he met Sam’s hazel eyes again, which were sparkling with sharp delight as if for once he knew something Gabriel did not.

“You?” the hunter asked, turning his piercing gaze away from Gabriel and starting down the stairs into the bunker proper.

“Just restructuring Heaven! Me and Mike and Luci, you know, lots of… Of work to do.”

Sam’s expression was level. Softly amused, but skeptical.

“Sounds like a pain.”

“You have no idea,” scoffed Gabriel, finally falling into his usual swagger. “But we all figure, it seems like Dad’s vacation is permanent, so we might as well be responsible. For once.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Sam led on until they were seated across from each other at one of the library tables. Then, setting down his beer and curling both hands loosely around the base of the bottle, Sam offered an odd half-smile.

“Lucifer visited,” he told Gabriel, letting out a breathy laugh and shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “I, uh… I decked him.”

A weird mixture of pride and protectiveness swelled in his chest, and locked together with icy fear to form a hard lump in the area of his sternum. For once, Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say.

“What’d he want?” the archangel settled on at last.

“Not sure. Dean banished him pretty quickly after that. But he mentioned you too.”

Gabriel felt himself caught somewhere between blushing and paling. He cleared his throat.

“Oh?”

“Said you were… Practicing for something?” Sam offered.

Yup, Gabriel concluded. He definitely felt faint. Unwell. He stood quickly and backed away from the table. Really, it would be better to call the whole thing—

What.

Gabriel frowned, and looked down at his feet, clad in pristine white tennis shoes. An… Angel trap? Not that he didn’t appreciate the added finesse of something a bit more elegant than holy fire, because that was getting kind of passé, but…

“What the hell, gigantor?”

When Gabriel looked back up, Sam was standing in front of him with his hands behind his back. The hunter shrugged.

“We learned a few things, fighting Metatron. Like this.”

“Okaaaaaay… But, why?”

“So you couldn’t fly off, of course.”

Gabriel wasn’t sure what to make of that, until Sam reached forward and snagged the archangel blade out of his jacket. The archangel’s golden eyes dulled a little; something small and sharp tightened a fist over the artery to his heart. He tried to laugh, but in the open air it just sounded like a painful cough.

“You- What? Are you yanking my chain here, Sam?”

Sam quirked an eyebrow, expression suddenly calm, devoid of the friendly mirth that had lit it only seconds before. He pointed the tip of the blade at Gabriel’s adam’s apple.

“Why would I be?” the brunette asked.

Gabriel spluttered, hands twitching upwards, and he had to stop them forcefully.

“That thing can kill me,” the archangel croaked out, voice leaping in pitch.

“So I’ve heard. Probably works much better than a wooden stake.”

Gabriel closed his eyes tightly, willing the image in front of him away. It was just another of Lucifer’s pranks, tests, whatever.

It had to be.

“Come on, Sambo. I… I saved you and Dean, didn’t I? Stood up to Lucifer.”

Sam’s frown went a bit derisive.

 “Sure, you saved us, but you didn’t really risk yourself, did you? You didn’t really die. It was just another one of your tricks. No risk for you, but you got to look like a hero. So, this practicing you’ve been doing? Whatever it’s about, it can’t be good. Not with you involved, Gabriel,” said the hunter, eyes grim and determined. “No matter what Castiel says, I can’t trust you. I can’t. You faked your death. You hid instead of helping, you teamed up with Metatron for God’s sake! And yet you expect me to think you want something good?”

He thought he’d set himself up for every possible outcome. At a loss, the archangel shook his head a little as his mouth tried to form words that might make sense to anyone that wasn’t himself. Sam wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“Sam please,” he begged at last. “Don’t do this, I-…”

 “No” Sam said firmly. “I’m not gonna give you a chance to hurt Dean, or me, again.”

Gabriel sucked in a shaky breath, grinned like it meant something. After a hundred different attempts, he still hadn’t been able to predict Sam Winchester. And here he was, about to die, all because of his own fuck-ups, because he couldn’t get a stupid pair of hazel eyes out of his head. Humans were terrifying that way; so, so easy to love. No matter what Lucifer said.

He was a liar. Gabriel knew Lucifer couldn’t get Sam out of his head either.

There was just something about Sam Winchester that pulled at you. Took everything you had, because the way he lived had ripped everything from him and you wanted to give something back no matter how much it cost you.

“I—” Gabriel choked; he squeezed his trembling hands into fists, reminded himself he was an archangel and he had faced his equal in battle without even flinching. “I came here to tell you something.”

Sam didn’t look interested. The point of the archangel blade traced Gabriel’s jugular in an almost sensual way before Sam pulled it back again. Then the hunter tilted his head for a second, nodding for Gabriel to continue.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, Sam. I ran away, I hid. Dean was right, I’ve always been afraid to stand up to my family. But I did it, in the end. For you, because of you,” he admitted, eyes blazing gold as he tried to remember what it felt like to know he was an archangel, to know that God had made him strong. “And I’ll keep doing it, even if it’s hard.”

He had to close his eyes to keep talking, because he didn’t want to know what the look on Sam’s face would say. Jess had been wrong. They had both been wrong. He imagined going back and telling her what a miserable failure he was. He imagined dreaming Sam forever. He imagined none of this, because angels didn’t go to heaven when they died.

“And,” he continued, turning his thoughts instead to conjuring hazel eyes that lit up when they saw him, “I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t be proud of but am. Nothing you say or do will change the fact that Mystery Spot was hilarious, and making you act in a Herpexia commercial was the highlight of our little TV Land escapade.”

If he had been practicing, Sam might have laughed. He didn’t. Gabriel pressed on.

“But. Everything I did, everything I put you and Dean through, I did because I was trying to look out for you numbskulls. Mostly, I was trying to look out for you, Sam. And I have _no_ idea how it happened, but somewhere between stealing your laptop and dying for you, I fell completely head over heels for your stupid ass.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh.

“So. There you have it, Sammy-boy. No regrets.”

Sam just looked at him, a mix of wonder and disbelief coloring his face. For some reason, it was speckled with guilt. The archangel blade didn’t waver a single centimeter. Then the brunette turned and slapped the weapon onto the library table. When he faced Gabriel again, his eyes were soft, and the bunker’s lighting caught in the blue flecks of his irises. Sam shook his head and let out a small, amazed laugh.

“Wow. You really… You really did it.”

Gabriel blinked.

“Huh?”

“I didn’t think it would be so hard, actually,” Sam admitted, fiddling with the archangel blade on the table before flicking his hair back away from his face. “Saying those things to you. I’m sure I must have meant them at some point, years ago, but…”

Sam’s mouth quirked in a half-smile. He sighed. Gabriel’s heart was still thudding in his chest, and he didn’t know what to do. Everything, even the air, felt like it had been shattered and put back together differently.

“Sorry. Your brothers know you pretty well. They knew you would run away. I guess maybe I should have too. Dean and Michael thought it would work to scare you, but I figured you’d just act all aloof. I thought you’d see through it,” Sam explained, a fond, mischievous grin turning up the corners of his mouth, though he kept his eyes downcast. “Using the archangel blade was Lucifer’s suggestion, actually.”

Mussing his hair, Gabriel frowned, opening and closing his mouth like a very confused fish.

“Wait, you- And- Wh- How?”

“ _That’s_ what you choose to ask first? Really?”

Gabriel’s eyebrows dipped low over his eyes.

“Yes!” he answered indignantly.

“Well, a few days after I punched Lucifer, he and Michael came back; to beg for forgiveness or something,” said Sam, scrubbing his face with one hand. “He explained about your ‘practice sessions’, even though Michael told him not to.”

Gabriel blinked, uncomprehending.

“And…?” he prodded.

Sam smiled a bit guiltily.

“And I wanted to put you off-balance.”

“You already do that by existing, Sambo.”

And though it was an embarrassing thing to admit aloud, Gabriel felt himself coming back into stride when Sam’s eyes darted away shyly at the comment. The archangel took a deep breath and let it out. Let his body ease back away from the shock of mortal danger, and into the familiar cradle of false bravado. Sam still hadn’t really answered his question.

“So…” Gabriel started, unsure exactly where this all put them, “Are you going to let me out of the angel trap?”

The gleam that appeared in Sam’s eyes put a pleasantly uncomfortable knot in Gabriel’s stomach.

“Maybe.”

“I always thought people saved kinky stuff for the second date,” the archangel joked, if only to keep his head above the water; to keep from hoping.

Sam looked as if he were about to say something, but just shrugged and scratched out a section of the circle. All Gabriel’s instincts told him to vault into the hunter’s arms like an insecure child, but he knew better than that.

“What… Does this all mean?” he asked carefully, stepping out of the circle.

Sam made a face as if everything was obvious, even though it clearly was not. And then he rested one large hand on Gabriel’s hip, leaned down a bit, and used the other to nudge the angel’s chin up so their gazes connected. Gabriel felt, intimately, every muscle in his body tense and coil. He wasn’t sure if his skin felt hot or cold or both.

“Would you like to go out sometime?”

Suddenly Gabriel’s ears were ringing.

“What…?”

Sam grinned a little, ghosted his lips over Gabriel’s once, twice, three times with jolts that almost sent the archangel to his knees.

“What I’m trying to say is,” the brunette continued, eyes soft and fond, green and blue flecks overtaken by brown. “I think we should go on a date. Get some coffee. See the Louvre. Snag some chocolate in Switzerland. You know. Start out casual.”

Dizzily, Gabriel thought to himself that he’d heard those words before somewhere.

“Sounds like a plan, Sammy-boy,” he managed breathlessly.

Sam pulled away, and stood to his full height. He looked smug. The bastard. Gabriel was still trying to gulp down enough air to function.

“I am an archangel, you know,” he conjured at last, mussing his hair and looking away as if that could save his dignity. “And a trickster. I’ll get you back for duping me.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?” Sam teased. “I already overpowered Satan, remember? After that, you’re kind of anticlimactic.”

Sam paused for a beat and put a hand to his chin as if he were thinking.

“And short,” the hunter added.

“Hey!”

Looking a little too pleased with himself (Gabriel blamed Lucifer for that look, _clearly_ Sam was spending too much time with big bro) Sam hauled Gabriel onto the library table, swiping the archangel blade and his half-full bottle of beer back from the edge with one hand, and kissed him insistently.

Gabriel was sure he had been at least a teensy bit upset about something, but could no longer remember exactly what it was. Actually, the archangel mused while tangling his fingers into Sam’s soft hair, if Sam kept kissing him he might forget a lot of things.

Jess was going to laugh at him.

But when Sam pulled back and rested his forehead against Gabriel’s, even that thought was eclipsed by the light in Sam’s eyes. The hunter huffed a little, pulling Gabriel closer.

“You just about killed me with that act, you know,” the archangel admitted.

Sam grinned a bit, burying his face in the slope of Gabriel’s neck.

“If I said the Devil made me do it would you forgive me?” he asked, sending little tongues of fire up and down Gabriel’s spine as each syllable touched his skin.

Gabriel opened his mouth to say something witty, but his lips went dry. He wetted them with his tongue and swallowed.

“Only if you forgive me for being such a dick all this time.”

Sam pulled back to study his expression.

“Gabriel…”

“I mean it. Sam,” the archangel said forcefully, brows pressed together. “I did what I did to help you, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt you too. I know that.”

The brunette shook his head.

“I think I forgave you years ago. On that video, when you said “oh, stop crying”. You _knew_ we weren’t. You must have…” Sam’s voice caught. “You must have felt so alone. Helping us, when we didn’t give a damn about you. Thanks to us, you’d lost everything, even your brothers. I know how that feels.”

There was such loneliness in Sam’s eyes that a lump formed in the back of Gabriel’s throat. Sam Winchester knew all about being left alone. But to turn it outward like that… With the kind of empathy God had tried to convince them all that humans were capable of...

“You’re kind of perfect, you know that?” the angel blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Funny,” answered Sam. “I was just about to say the same thing to you.”

Golden eyes cornered to the left.

“But why—”

“I don’t know if you remember this,” Sam admitted slowly, “but your brothers turned you into a little kid for a while. And the way you looked at me… Like the sun shone outta my ass.”

A laugh bubbled off Sam’s lips in the most enticing way. Gabriel’s brain buzzed at him, and he did begin to recall something like that. Then the memories slapped him square in the face, and his ears lit up red.

“Oh.”

“Nobody’s ever looked at me like that before. And you were a kid. You couldn’t lie, kids are no good at that,” Sam explained. “So…”

“So you figured it out _then_ …?”

Sam’s lips twisted as he tried not to laugh.

“It is pretty ridiculous, huh?”

“We tend to lead ridiculous lives. It comes with having dicks for older brothers,” said Gabriel, allowing himself to meet Sam’s gaze again.

He was reminded of a galaxy. All the stars Lucifer had carefully arranged in the sky. Trails of glittering stardust, that one handful Gabriel got to toss into the heavens…

“So… About that date…” Sam pressed.

“Does tomorrow work for you?” the archangel suggested eagerly.

“Sounds good.”

Gabriel’s heart glowed, and he shook his head a little.

“I love you,” he said, like it was a revelation.

Sam’s eyes shone. But all he could force out was an,

“I—”

The brunette’s mouth trembled as he tried to hold a smile. He looked down. Gabriel stretched up and pressed a kiss to the hunter’s bowed forehead.

“I know how you muttonheads are about the L-word. Don’t force it,” the archangel insisted. “I just… I can’t believe I can say it to you without getting a fist to the nose.”

“Douche.”

It was said fondly.

“Actually, they call me Gabriel.”

His smartass answer earned him another kiss.

 

**Epilogue; Meanwhile Back on the Farm:**

 

Lucifer’s frown was downright juvenile. Michael himself wasn’t exactly _pleased_ , but he at least knew how to act the adult.

“You certainly do a lot for visiting rights,” he commented.

“Shut up,” grumbled Lucifer, pressing the pads of his fingers to his long-healed nose. “Just because _your_ True Vessel is a pain in the ass…”

“My True Vessel also knows better than to physically assault me,” the dark-haired archangel pointed out, shrugging.

Lucifer shot his older brother a sneer and stuck out his forked tongue.

Suddenly, Castiel was standing next to them. He blinked his too-blue eyes.

“I believe our plan was a success,” he stated.

Lucifer twirled a single index finger in the air in mock celebration, rolling his eyes.

“Mark my words,” the blond warned. “Gabriel will be insufferable after this. _And_ never home.”

“You can’t be jealous of both of them,” Michael reminded him maturely.

“Says who? It's _my_ True Vessel and  _my_ little brother—”

"Our little brother."

 

Castiel left the archangels to bicker, and reappeared next to Dean, who was sitting at a bar.

“I’m stocking up on holy oil,” the green-eyed man commented roughly when he noticed the return of his drinking buddy. “Just in case he screws up.”

Then he shot Castiel a defensive, questioning look. An expression that asked the question Dean was too stubborn to: “Sammy looked happy though, right?”

“Sam appeared pleased with the result of our plan,” the angel supplied.

Dean nodded, squared his jaw, returned his gaze resolutely to his drink. Castiel shook his head a little and found a fond smile spreading over his features.

Humans.

 

Jessica Moore sat on a windowsill and watched herself eat Christmas dinner with her family. Studied the light in her own expression. Then, with a slight quirk of the lips at her own childishness, she closed her eyes and crossed her fingers to wish Sam Winchester, wherever he was, happiness.

 

Somewhere far away, Chuck Shurley leaned back from his keyboard. The words “And God saw that it was good” blinked back at him. He hit print and took a sip of his drink.

 

Sam and Gabriel, knowing none of this, smiled at each other.


End file.
